


Wise Child

by archea2



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Family, Family Secrets, Greg Lestrade & John Watson Friendship, Humor, M/M, Paternal Lestrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2017-12-08 14:24:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade and Sherlock find out that Lestrade is Sherlock's biological father. </p><p>An unexpected journey into family love, complete with elusive lions, nobbled bachelors, waterfall-hangers, Anderson's views on sibling rivalry, and the Met-approved guide to the care and feeding of Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written before/not compliant with Season 2. A gift for Impishtubist.
> 
> Contains rewrites of the ACD cases "The Veiled Lodger" and "The Noble Bachelor".

_It is a wise child that knows its own father._  
English proverb

 

All in all - to quote John Watson's profound observation in a blog entry that never saw the day - it really came down to poetic justice. Sherlock was a _little_ too fond of telling Detective Inspector Lestrade that the latter wouldn't spot his own two feet in size-twelve Dr Martens and red mountaineering socks. The Fates must have tired of the joke, or they wouldn't have tipped Sherlock into a midnight bath that left him flapping and fretting at his nemesis' escape while Lestrade did his best to keep his consultant inside of a blanket.  
  
He was threatening to radio for backup and hot Ribena when the blanket slipped again over Sherlock's deceptively bird-boned frame. The flashing light on a near police car caught a dark smudge on his left shoulder blade, and Lestrade blinked.  
  
Then whipped off the blanket altogether, leant forward for a closer look, and said "Bugger".  
  
Sherlock stiffened at the word. "If that," came the stern reply, "is your monthly contribution to deduction, I'm not impressed. John beat you to it on our first meal, and –"  
  
"No, you fool! The mark! The biggish, blueish whatchamacalit – have you always had it?"  
  
"Oh, that." Sherlock, ever the Contrary Mary, had grabbed the blanket and was pulling it back while Lestrade held stubbornly to his end. A brief tug-of-war ensued as Sherlock carried on. "That, Inspector, is commonly known as a birthmark. Never come across one in your line of work? Mycroft used to call it the Blue Carbuncle, but then my brother's wit would hardly fill one of his tooth cavities. Makes it such a bother to investigate Turkish baths undercover. And gyms. And the Neo-pagan hikers. Lestrade, what are you doing? I couldn't be less interested in your ankle, man, and now is not the time for a crime scene reconstructi –"  
  
But Sherlock had to freeze mid-diphthong. Lestrade's left foot, now that he'd pulled off his shoe and sock, sported the exact same mark – biggish, blueish, vaguely spiderish – on the instep. The two men looked up at each other slowly. Lestrade's expression was that of a fawn staring at a refrigeration van's headlights. Sherlock's expression was that of the fawn having successfully pegged the van as the same vehicle that had run over his mother a month earlier.  
  
"Impossible." Sherlock swallowed. "Or, at the very least, very improbable."  
  
"I’ll say! For one thing, I have deep brown eyes –"  
  
Sherlock shook his head sadly. "Check your Mendelian tables, Gregor. And look better. There's always something... Ha! Nailed it. You were twenty-two when I was conceived, and unless I’m mistaken, which I'm not, my parents were still posted abroad."  
  
"Thank god." Lestrade clutched at the tendril of hope with wild-eyed optimism. "Where abroad? You name it. Beijing? Paris? Afghanistan?" Where had young Greg been twenty-five years ago, a penny freshly minted by the Met? The past had been a closed case to him ever since the wretched divorce. Ah yes, that exchange programme with – oh god. The Ecole de Gendarmerie at Geneva. Where his libido had been anything but neutral in its heyday. He knew Sherlock had seen him flinch, seen his face blanch as the memory struck home, leaving him no choice but to speak out. In for a penny...  
  
"Switzerland," Lestrade said dully, wondering if this was the moment to remind Sherlock that, as chromosomes went, he'd got the best of a bad lot. Hell, it could have been worse. Could have been Gregson, if he hadn't been grounded at Hendon for shagging the Collision Investigation instructor. "Now look on the bright side, kid –"  
  
Sherlock  _whimpered_.  
  
"Really, brother. I'm shocked." An umbrella tip speared the ground between them, missing Lestrade’s naked foot by an inch or two. He hopped back, looking for his sock. "Notwithstanding your little monograph on footsteps, this one eluded you longer than I thought." Mycroft Holmes turned to Lestrade. "My mother's word was good enough for me, Detective Inspector. But I dare say you'll want a few tests. It seems that diplomatic life in Geneva proved a lit-tle boring at times – no doubt you proved a healthier distraction than milk chocolate."  
  
"I –" Lestrade looked up to see his entire force task convening around them. He could spot Donovan close behind Mycroft, staring at him as if he was the Antichrist. Wonderful. And Anderson was blabbing into his phone, probably denouncing him to the higher-ups for five years’ stealthy nepotism. Lestrade licked his lips. In for a penny, in for a pounding? "Just what d'you think you're playing at? Why didn't you tell me before you more or less blackmailed me into hiring him?"  
  
"Come, come, Inspector. All I said was, 'The boy needs a firm hand and a smoke detector.' You proved equally reliable in both capacities – the blood instinct, I'll wager."  
  
"What did he tell you?" Lestrade asked Sherlock. He had picked up the blanket, which had flopped once more to the ground, and was covering Sherlock's shoulders mechanically.  
  
Sherlock's voice sounded as if it was filtered through a nutmeg grinder. "That you were quite the average bobby, not worth my time or attention. And that he'd be happy to employ me in a minor capacity if I wanted to put my intellect to good use."  
  
"Like father, like son. So predictable," Mycroft purred, which had Lestrade shove his balled fists deeper into his coat pockets. Governmenticide was probably still punishable by the axe. Or was it chemical castration in these enlightened days? He'd have to ask the Westminster Division.  
  
"Inspector, if you'd be so kind as to donate a hair... Or a toenail, since they're available. My staff is waiting."  
  
Lestrade lifted his left foot. John Watson, who had somehow made it to the happy crowd, stepped forward.  
  
"Sherlock –"  
  
"I'm in shock," Sherlock said, falling back a pace.  
  
"It's, it's all right, Sherlock. No, it's not. Is it? Oh, Jesus. I'd better see you tomorrow, then... er..."  
  
"Lestrade." Sherlock's effort to sound desultory was commendable, but his white face and shaky voice retained a touch of the van-deducing fawn. "That thing that you, erm, did – that was – good. No, really. Your bouncing hormones made it possible for the Vernet genes to breed in, in, in, in – in a sanitary site, sparing them a _stuffier_ environment." His pointed look grazed Mycroft’s figure. "And that's the long and short of it as far as I'm concerned. I don't see any necessity to change what has proved an adequate working relationship. Good night."  
  
He spun on his heel and dived into the crowd, still bare-chested. Lestrade felt a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"I'll see to the car, sir." Donovan was looking at him, her countenance hovering between compassion and abject hilarity. "I'll make sure the F – that is, your – I'll make sure they get home safely."  
  
... Lestrade's last thought that night was for the lush lanes of the English Consulate at Geneva and their oh-so-convenient hedges. And the lush white body rippling under his, wave after wave of blood-tingling lust and Chanel N°. 5, and the voice – his – panting "Oh baby, it's Christmas!" He groaned, pressing his face into the sheets. Charlotte, she had said her name was, and that she was on the pill.  
  
Sherlock was right. His son was right. He was an idiot.  
  
\--------------------  
  
Sherlock, of course, did not show up at the Yard the next day. Lestrade did, only to find that he had been granted a two-week paid paternity leave he’d never thought of requesting. He spent the first hour at his desk, penning a memo to his team and wondering how he could have thought paperwork wearisome before.  
  
Eleven versions were tried and found wanting. The two finalists read as follows :  
  
_"To everyone concerned. I guess all of you know by now that Sherlock Holmes, our consulting detective, was found to be my biological son. It’s a complex situation, with work-related issues, and naturally you’ll want to know what my position is. Here goes. I’ll stand by the CO’s decision or Sherlock’s if they chose to end his consultancy, but my own vote is to give our team dynamics a chance to carry on exactly as they are. Sherlock’s skills make him an asset to our work, but you have my word that here and in all professional environment he’ll be treated like before and doesn’t expect anything else. I’ve had your vote of confidence till now. I’m asking you to stretch it an extra inch, and trusting no one will rue it."_

and  
  
_"To everyone concerned. Yeah, he’s my Kinder egg surprise. Take a five and laugh your abs off, you tossers, but you’d better have them in tip-top shape when the CO pops in for his monthly tour. And before anyone asks, yeah still one of the gang. Like before – no more, no less. All clear? Good. See you on Monday, then, and on your head be it if any of you calls me Daddy in The Presence."_  
  
He tore up the first version, typed the other into his mail box, and got up. He didn’t need a week to know what was to be done, but he certainly needed a corpse-stiff scotch before he did do it, and there was no place like home.  
  
\---------------------  
  
"At least bite into a toast, or something." John banged the teapot on the kitchen table to drive his point home. "It’s been four days, Sherlock! I can't think of anyone, not even you, solving a case of identity with a hunger strike."  
  
"What case?" Sherlock, stretched out slantwise on his chair, his slippered feet shoved under the table, was breaking the toast absently over a plate. Apparently, his next masterplan to catch Moriarty implied throttling the man with bread crumbs. That, or he was working on a new fractal theory. "There’s no case when there’s no doubt, John. The tests have made it clear that Lestrade and I are genetically connected. Fine. Since he and I, and you for that matter, are also connected to everyone else on this planet through six people, I don’t see why you’re so obsessed with this. You’ve never inquired about my relatives before when you saw me skip a meal."  
  
John sighed. "Look, it can’t be that simple." The table was now spattered with runaway experimental crumbs and he went to fetch a sponge. "Nor for him. You’ve just found out he’s your father –"  
  
"Genitor."  
  
"– and while the two of you have been friends –"  
  
"Colleagues."  
  
" – for years, it's a mind-boggling fact, and you can't pretend it doesn't affect you."  
  
"I'm not affected! Affect is a strictly empirical percept! I don't _do_ empirical!" Sherlock was getting more agitated by the minute, and John pushed his advantage along with the sponge.  
  
"Well, I bet it’s affecting Lestrade. Has he called you?"  
  
"No." Sherlock tucked in his chin as he drew a complex spiral on the oilcloth with his fingertip. "Not that I’m expecting him to, unless he has a case. Which brings us full circle to –"  
  
The knock on their main door was loud. As was Lestrade’s voice, pat on the rap. "Sherlock? Let me in. I know you’re here, I have your coat’s testimony. We need to talk – at least I need to talk and you need to interrupt. Sherlock? Door. Open. Now."  
  
"I’m not changing my name!" Sherlock yelled out. "It’s been highly functional for twenty-five years, and I see no reason – "  
  
John rose on a sigh, leaving the room.  
  
"I’m not asking you to take my bloody name!" Lestrade was yelling back thirty seconds later, stomping into the kitchen. He had two bulky volumes under his arm. "You can call yourself Sinclair Bassington-ffrench for all I care, you great clodpole."

He dropped his burden next to the teapot, grabbed a chair, and crossed his arms ominously. "What I care about is this, and no, lemme have my say. You’ve never spoken much of your folks, Sherlock, and what I know of your mum would peter out before the third line if I had to report it. But you – you I’ve known for five years now, and even if I haven’t figured you out and don’t hold any hope I ever will, I’ve cared for you way more than I had any call to. Now that I know – well. If you’re my son, then you’re my son, and no one, not you, not anyone, will make me deny it. I’m not trying force you into some sort of setup, whatever your brother has in mind, I get it that this has come upon you like a sore boil – "  
  
"It’s –" Sherlock had winced at his choice of words. "It’s not something I’m going to delete. It’s just – Lestrade, I've no idea what you expect me to do or say."

His voice had gone oddly thin on the last words and John, from his station at the kitchen window, felt a soft pinch in the region of his heart.  
  
"It’s all right," Lestrade repeated, his voice gentler. He reached out and brushed the curve of Sherlock’s shoulder, careful not to squeeze it. "It is, really. We’ll just – make it up as we go, okay? I know I want to." He glanced at Sherlock’s averted face, and John could almost hear the click as more pieces fell into place in his mind. "I guess he – your other father – was not a very... demonstrative man?"  
  
Sherlock nodded, eyes on the crumbs. The unspoken words remained unspoken.  
  
"It’s all right," Lestrade said again, and stood up. "Look, I can’t stay, I’m already late for work. I’ve really come to bring you these." He motioned to the two enormous scrapbooks on the table. "It’s the best I could do. Photographs, papers... you know. Thought you might like to know where you come from. So to speak."  
  
He was straightening his back as he spoke, and John felt a twinge of déjà vu at the defensive pose.

"I’m not gonna tell you my people were the pick of England, Sherlock. But they’re nothing to be ashamed of. Your grandfather won thirty-four crosswords puzzle competitions in the _Times_ , used to send them under a different name every month. And my Ma's as sharp-eyed as they make ’em. One glance at your shoes, back from school, and she could tell soil from silt, and marl from clay, no hiding from her if you’d gone and played truant. Hm, yeah, well, there _was_ a hiding, but a light-handed one, really. And then a hug and a hot muffin, and a clean slate until next time."  
  
The West Country burr was gathering in his voice, and Sherlock lifted his head, intrigued. Lestrade’s smile had taken ten years off his face.  
  
"Anyway. Keep'em as long as you like. And – well, you know where to find me." Lestrade had made for the door. He was halfway into their living room when he snapped his fingers, stepped back, looped an arm round Sherlock and pulled him to his chest in a solid hug.  
  
Sherlock went rigid with horror. At the window, John Watson turned quickly and gave in to impromptu asthma.  
  
"Yeah, forgot to tell you. The Vernets don’t have a monopoly on Continental genes, son. You’re the happy owner of a pint or two of Gallic blood –  _Southern_  Gallic blood. Think on that, eh? Bye, John."  
  
John waited till the flat door had shut with a boom to turn back. His flatmate was unhitching himself from his chair with a poker face which, in John’s experience of gambling which extended over three continents, wouldn’t have fooled a charity bingo novice.  
  
"Er, d'you want to take these to your room?" he asked, pointing to the albums. He did not expect an answer and got none. Knowing from experience that a kitchen table had little to no chance of remaining a tabula rasa in Sherlock’s vicinity, John carried the scrapbooks to their living room and cleared a niche for them on one of the lower shelves.  
  
Then busied himself a little more with them before going up to his room. Sherlock was not the only one who liked to run experiments after all, and John had learnt a thing or two, living with a man who constantly paid of his own person for science.  
  
\------------------  
  
The rest of the week dribbled on.  
  
A comment appeared on Sherlock’s Web site which might or might not have come from Moriarty, though _Reaching back to you very very soon, dahling!_ hardly smacked of the Master at his best. Sherlock turned to the Internet and checked dahlias, dalits and little dahus, not putting any real effort into the chase. Most of the time he huddled on his long-suffering sofa and watched the sun rise and the sun set, and the British rain fall on the nothing new.  
  
John was being no help. John’s answer to Sherlock’s mention of the nothing new was, "Please tell me you’re joking," and "Have you called him yet? " Calling Lestrade, according to John, seemed to entail making animated chit-chat about being Lestrade's son. Sherlock wasn't too sure about that.  
  
Once the first shock of had worn off, he'd found that he liked his new status. It made sense, in a way that pleased his mind more than he’d thought possible. Lestrade had always been there for him in his solid, stubborn warmth, and Sherlock knew it; knew that without the DI’s rough blessing, even if it came with drugs busts and spastic index fingers and inept questions, he would still be an embryo in the great womb of detection. Without Lestrade, he would have remained "Holmes, S." on a students’ registration list instead of becoming SHERLOCK HOLMES on two celebrated Web sites. Names were immaterial. Facts mattered. Sherlock looked at this particular fact, and Sherlock saw that it was good.  
  
But, dear Lord, what else was there to say? He’d Googled "sonhood", letting himself be momentarily sidetracked by the Scrabble forums, then restricted his search to "unexpected paternal recognition". And he still didn’t see his way to sustaining even a five-minute exchange on the topic, unless Lestrade showed interest in the late President Mitterrand or, perish the thought, _Star Wars_. So he’d dipped into Lestrade’s albums, taking the blond eyelash planted between pages 11 and 12 and putting it fondly in his shirt pocket. It would have been easy to set it back in place, but if it pleased John to find out that he’d consulted the books, Sherlock was willing to overlook even a stratagem inspired by John’s calamitous detective novels.  
  
Besides, there might be another family mystery to plumb. He’d looked up statistics on the comparative rate of illegitimate births in rural and urban environments and the results were quite encouraging.  
  
On Friday night, while John was cooking what he would inevitably call the Trooper's Risotto, i.e. beans and ham, and Sherlock was completing a new tour of the albums, Lestrade called. Sherlock pounced on his phone.  
  
"Sherlock." The DI’s voice sounded cautious but resolute. "Thought you might like to help with a case. Circus owner found dead, mauled by a lion, him and his missus too. Some foul play by the look of it, but no one saw anything, the lion’s cage was locked from the inside and the lion himself can’t be found. Also, there might be a Doomsday sect involved. Do you want...?"  
  
"Yes," Sherlock breathed happily.  
  
"Good. Take a cab to Hampstead and ask for Rounder’s Show. And, Sherlock, I'd rather you brought John. And – "  
  
"Yes?" Sherlock asked, mouthing "lion" and "cab" to John almost simultaneously.  
  
Lestrade seemed to hesitate, then said, "Look, just remember – no, never mind. See you there."  
  
Sherlock waited, but all he heard was a tinny ringing tone. As he hurried out onto the landing, coat and John in tow, he nearly collided with Mrs Hudson carrying a covered plate.  
  
"Oops! Careful, dear. Going a-roving, are we? Your detective inspector must have called. Say hello from me, he’s such a lovely man. God knows that if I was ten years younger – "  
  
She was cut short by a firm peck on the cheek. Sherlock was looking at her with the fond countenance that she alone seemed to rouse in him.  
  
"It’s all right, Mrs Hudson. You’d still be past procreating age, but I’ve always considered you more or less _in loco parentis_."  
  
And left her gaping after him as he skipped down the stairs, John’s exasperated sigh unheeded at his back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The background case for this chapter is a rewrite of ACD's story "The Veiled Lodger".

Rounder’s Show, they soon found out, was bivouacking on a north-eastern plateau of Hampstead Heath. It provided a bird’s-eye view of Highgate Cemetery and its unholy trinity of ghosts: the Tall Man in the Hat, the Solitary Cyclist and Black Peter, the Pogojowski vampyr who fed on live foxes, beheaded women and rival journalists.  
  
(Thus spake Wikipedia to Sherlock during their ride uphill, causing him to frown and make a mental note to wikiblock John’s laptop in the near future. Deprived of access to potential sensationalist titles, John would later come out with a modest _The Lion, the Bitch (Except She Wasn't) and the Yard Row_. With John’s laptop now stuck on the Wiki ban, it would take Sherlock another day, six hours and a last-minute appeal to Mrs Hudson to crack the pun.)

  
As he stepped out of the cab into the rain-refreshed air, Sherlock contracted his irises like a cat on a night out. The rain was still dimming the shapes before him, but he could make out the bulk of the circus vans, some outlined by strings of fairy lights which stood their fragile ground against the cruder police lights, pulsing white and blue under the layers of darkness. And here was another shape, svelter, familiar; her hair bundled into the hood of her Gore-Tex coat; motioning them forward.

He drew nearer and waited for the predictable quip about freak shows.

"Hullo, John. Hul-looo, Sonny. Take Your Kid to Work night, is it?" Donovan grinned up at him as she unclipped the radio from her belt coat, her voice suddenly pitched to a bright coo. Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Your dad’ll be in the lion’s van, fourth on your left, just follow your nose. And remember Mr Good Manners: We say Hello, We say Please, Before we Play with the Corpsies."

She turned to John and, with a flourish, lifted the police tape a bare inch over his head. Sherlock’s attempt to confiscate the tape and tug it up met with unexpected resistance ( _3rd dan in kendo, no, 4th, possibly handstretches her own pasta_ ), forcing him to slouch his shoulders and meet her full front on.

"He thinks you’re smarter than the lot of us." Donovan's voice had dropped back to its crisp-edged self. "No newsflash, that. But if you are, then you’ve already guessed tonight is not about you. Tonight is about him and you, and you and us. So you mind your dad tonight, bright boy. You mind him, and we’ll – mind you. You don't, I'll march you to the naughty step myself." Her smile had a hint of teeth now.

 _Definitely 5th dan_. But she hadn’t raised her voice, not enough to distract the two constables flipping a lazy torch over their notes on the other side of her car, and now she was pivoting to her side to let him pass. So not a taunt, or only half a taunt, and he wasn’t quite sure about the missing half. He craned his neck and strained his eyes to scan her face again, only to find that her radio obscured most of it.

A hand curled around his elbow, pulling him back to the focused presence that was John in the night, in the flesh, his John, steering them across the small archipelago of cars.

"She’s giving you a pass," his John was saying cheerfully.

"A pass?" Dear Lord. Where Donovan was concerned, a little semantics could go a long, long way. A pass, a naughty step...  _was she trying to flirt with him?_

"Yup. You’re no longer the odd man out in their eyes. You’re Lestrade’s son, and Lestrade – well, you heard her. Lestrade is their old man too, sort of. Pack leader. Basically, she’s telling you you can be honorary alpha long as you remember who’s the alpha-alpha here."

"That’s not how the wolf family dynamics –"

"Shhh. You know exactly what I mean. Let’s go find him."

\-------------------------------------------------

Finding the crime scene was easy enough, once they side-stepped the various contraptions of tarps and ropes rigged up by the Met to keep the rain from ruining the new show. But there was a change in the air – it had grown more fetid, lomier as they neared the lion’s van – and it brought an odd rush of happiness in Sherlock. Odd, because this wasn’t just the routine heat of the game; this was more diffuse, a softer, static glow. More like coming home after a case to the rich cardamon notes of Mrs Hudson’s late night tea and John’s compact shadow at the fireplace.

Which hardly made sense, since they were still outdoors and he hadn’t even been properly introduced to the case. But there it was, this fullness, this homecoming, in the scene at last uncoiling before his eyes: the lion tamer’s van, or rather the lion’s van with the lion out and the tamer in, messily visible through the barred partitions.

Except it wasn’t the dead man Sherlock was seeing. It was the grey-haired man, chin tucked in, scratching the right side of his neck as he stared down at the corpse, his posture so familiar, so well-worn over the years (and corpses) that Sherlock couldn’t have said what made it so warmly particular now. But warm it was, and particular, and since there was only one way to make the sensation clearer, Sherlock found that his steps were quickening to –

"And where do you think you’re going?"

The sensation faltered, jarred; cut short by a visual he thought he’d deleted years ago, when his last visit to a circus had coincided with his sixth birthday. The circus had been Mother’s idea and she had laughed out his frown, dancing them all to the big marquee where he had sat between Father and Mycroft, hating it all - the coloured-by-numbers stage, the flatulent brass-band music, and, more than anything else, the red-nosed clown who had waddled up to the first row to ask his name. Sherlock had had to speak it (twice, because of the din), only to have the clown look his way and call out "HOMER!" at intervals during the rest of the show. Sherlock still remembered the rising tides of laughter, and how grateful he had been to Father, who had sat next to him through the whole ordeal and never laughed once.

"Holmes."

"Anderson." Sherlock tried to sidestep the man, only to find himself glaring at a large, slightly congested nose.  _Plus ça change_.

"You’re not getting in here with that, that, that electrostatic _menace_ on your back." The cold had done nothing to improve Anderson’s pissy tones – now he sounded like an aggrieved Daffy Duck. "As if we didn’t have enough trouble picking up clues. In case you’d forgotten, you’re dealing with a lion here."

In the lit-up background, Lestrade had straightened up with an inaudible groan and a twitch of his shoulders towards the rear door. Anderson had seen it too; had been on the watch for it, crinkling his eyes in the briefest of asides. Sherlock felt something catch in his throat, then well into a pulse, low-tuned and dangerous.

"Overrating yourself, as always. Let. Me. In."

"Or what? You’re no VIP, Holmes. Lestrade made it clear. Made it an official note to us, in fact, so don’t you go and think –"

Hatred struck, blind and knowing. Hatred because the idiot had dulled his glow, raised his past, because of Lestrade’s back turned and retreating into a shadowy corner, past ghosts, a child’s mistaken gratitude, because of Anderson getting in the way. Every. Single. Time. Sherlock forced in a thin breath, covered it with a smirk.

"Tell me, Anderson. What was it that made your father so disappointed in you?"

"Sherlock." John gave Sherlock’s elbow a cautionary pinch.

Oh, but it was worth it, seeing Anderson go so green and still. Sherlock shook his arm free and carried on, mind rising to the occasion, tearing through six years of mental records, fast and savage. "He wanted you to be a full-fledged doctor like himself. But you never managed that, did you? Never even made it to the right faculty? "

"Guys. Enough with the sibling rival –"

"Three grades As, all at 'A' level. They’re all you’d have needed to get into medicine. Judging from your records here, you barely managed two. What did you do, barter your initials? Or wait, no. What am I saying. This gets _so_ much better." He knew his laughter sounded manic but, god. He’d never felt so high all on his own.

"Sherlock."

"Not Uni, no; not even that. Before that. He wanted you to enter a private school, of course, had scrimped and saved to pay the fee, and you... failed the entrance test. Couldn’t even give him that, could you? You –"

" _Sherlock!_ "

He was so focused on the rip-up, finding and timing his blows to the white-faced man before him, that a whole pride of lions could have pranced  up and down before him unnoticed. He hadn’t noticed Lestrade either, a few steps back on their left, his face set and unsmiling as he took in the scene.

"Right. _Right_. Why did I even think this - never mind. You and I need a word together. Anderson, don't saunter off, you're on next. John, you seem to be the man of reason tonight, have a dekko at it all? Sherlock, you’re coming with me. _Now_."

He would have protested, but Lestrade, having said his say, was cutting a firm stride towards a smaller van on their left. Sherlock followed, making it a point to bypass Anderson and scan the corpse on his way. In his present state, the late Rounder could hardly be called an invigorating sight, but Sherlock felt almost thankful to the man for providing his first stable, clear-cut impression of the evening. He whisked out his phone and took a few pictures of the man’s back with its intriguing cat’s-cradle of red lines, before he headed to the van.

"Well?" Lestrade said once Sherlock had climbed the metal folding-steps and closed the door. The DI was facing him before a partition that looked at first like a giant needle-case but was really a knife thrower’s live-in arsenal, nailed with blades of all sizes and species. Mrs Rounder’s lodge, then – Sherlock had Googled the circus program in the cab.

"Care to explain that little number of yours out there? Or do I get three guesses like in the old tales?"

Sherlock weighed his options. Most of the time, explaining was all it took to soothe an irate Lestrade, but this was before the DI had become part of the problem, which might well trip the smooth running of explanation. How did other people, the ordinary people, tell their ordinary fathers that they had every right to be Very Important in their eyes? The answer, as often when Sherlock was truly at a loss, came in his brother’s unctuous sneer.  _Try ordinary words, if they're not above your strength?_

"Anderson said –." Huh, good enough as ordinary went. "Anderson said that you told them –"

And this was when all the words stopped at once, but Lestrade’s hands had already relayed them, weighing on his shoulders as they turned him slowly, steadily away from the knives. Sherlock gave in to the touch while he was held first at arms’ length, then closer, one of Lestrade’s hands moving up to cup his face. Making it impossible to escape the dark-brown eyes filling with attention, seeing him at close quarters: Lestrade  _observing_  him before he spoke again.

"And you don’t know any better than to pay Anderson mind? And take hearsay evidence? You know better than that, kid." A thumb brushing the ridge of his cheek, to a snort of disbelief. "Next time, try asking me first? I told them what I told every higher-up and their sweet old Ma – that I wanted my son around. With me. One of us. But team is as team does, Sherlock, and what you just did was bloody out of order."

Sherlock tried a warning look of his own, aware that the hand-hug rather spoilt the effect. Rules were a) boring, b) changeable, if Mycroft’s example was anything to go by, and c) wasted where Anderson was concerned. The DI’s mouth twitched slightly, but his eyes remained grave.

"Not letting you off, Sherlock. Not this time. There’s a thin line between wit and viciousness and you're not crossing it again, not here, not anywhere I can spot you."

"Or what?" Oh, brilliant. Now he was parroting Anderson. Sherlock pouted and tried again.

"You’ll throw me in a cell and ground me?"

"’Course not. That would be pretty unfair to the case." This time, Lestrade’s smile was noticeably mischievous. "Nah, we Lestrades have more expedient methods. Remember? Hiding, hug, hot muffin. You’d have to wait a bit for the muffin if we’re outdoors, but there’ll always be" – the DI gave his trench pocket a brisk pat – "a mint imperial to tide you over, son."

And with that, Lestrade tilted his head aside and winked at him.

In nights yet to come, alone and shaking in a high-altitude refuge, Sherlock would think back on this moment in sharp wonder. For the wink was an old friend of his, older than Mrs Hudson or the skull, or Victor (who ranged a close second and could testify to their early association). The wink-and-tilt were Sherlock’s, practiced since his first term at Cambridge, when he’d found that people did his bidding quicker if he made his face endearing, a smile here and a wink there. The wink had come more naturally, so he’d used it again and again, up to the very day he’d met John at Barts and whipped it out, heart beating faster than heart had any call to beat. And now it was winking back at him on another face, older, rounder. Gentler. His father’s face – picking it from Sherlock in the course of six years, mimicking him unawares? Or was it really the other way round? A gift, handed down invaluably, thoughtlessly (typical Lestrade), across a far wider chasm of years? The voice of blood, traitorous and dazzling?

It was such a thrill, this idea that Lestrade and he now made up a whole new field to be probed and plumbed, the rare bond of genetics, that he nearly missed the latter’s concerned "Sherlock?”

"Bond," Sherlock gasped back.

Lestrade blinked. "Huh? Yeah, John told me you’d never watched those. Eh, why not. If you like. I should be seeing more of you, anyway. Would like it, too." He ran a tired hand over his nose and brow, smiled again. "Say, I’ll cut you a deal. John tells you what’s good, yeah? Then I should be telling you what’s right. And you..."

"And I?"

"You still get to tell us what’s what, at the end of the day. Trust me, sunshine, you get the lion’s share."

And Lestrade’s face fell so quickly Sherlock could not hold back a giggle. "Jesus. That sodding lion. Look, you’d better get back to the scene – I need to get in touch with Wildlife Crime. And forensics. And Hampstead Hospital, to check on Sheila Rounder. Oh, and Anderson, too. I promise."

And the hand-hug fell apart, though Sherlock could feel its ghost memory lingering on his cheek as he turned to face the knife-wall again. Strange, that he had not minded the real thing. It was years since a man’s hand had come across his face unclenched, yet not so strange if he did his reckonings – six years ago, Lestrade even then, pressing a wet flannel over a leaner Sherlock’s face and hands while Sherlock babbled of ants. It was the final, itching stage of withdrawal, and Sherlock had carried it out without style or good will because the ants were all over the place, competing with the oysters and Mycroft to take over the world. The Aztecs had been the first to spot the truth and toast the ants, so the diet was really Mycroft’s masterplan to become less edible and Lestrade must alert the press _at once_. It all coalesced, really, except for the flannel which had no business setting his face on fire.

Lestrade’s answers had been tireless, if a little wild – the press had been informed, yeah, oh yeah, NATO too, the bees and the French were on their side, scratch my nose again and I’ll truss you up in police tape, see if I don’t.

The answers had cooled Sherlock’s fears wonderfully, and he’d done his best to reciprocate later on, when Lestrade had demanded he either quit or left.  _I promise_.

His heart stirred with the memory, he scanned the wall. 

There was a gap in the gleaming rows; one of the smaller, lancet-like knives was missing. Had the Rounder woman – no. Lestrade’s eyes were on him, but his arms hung at his side, slack and still. Lestrade knew where the knife was. Probably in one of Anderson’s sterilised bags, after the man had noticed a speck of this or that on the blade. Unless it had been found in the van? Yes, it would be the van. Sherlock lowered his gaze to the small table laden with knick-knacks and one large photograph, its aluminium frame gleaming under the ceiling lights. The camera had caught her looking up at Rounder, oblivious to the flash, a strand of hair dangling over her left eye. Smiling, happy. What a fool the murderer had been to let it remain in pride of place, the table centrepiece. He picked it up.

"I’ll leave the lion to you. I think. But this, here – I can help. You’ll have to look for someone else, though; she’s been framed." Lestrade groaned at the pun; Sherlock grinned at the groan. Then, second thought striking, crossed the aisle in quick, cat-soft steps, and threw the door open.

"Her knife was found on the scene," he went on, addressing the man who flailed for balance on the folding-steps. "But it didn’t cause the wounds on Rounder. Clever, very clever, to make it look as if _she_  was framing the lion, only not so clever, really, because one knife couldn't have done the trick. Think. Four straight lines, spaced out exactly the same? Not even giving or taking a millimetre? No. They could only be drawn by four sharp points aligned on the same axis. My money, Doctor Anderson, is on unrequited lust, clumsy revenge and a professional digging fork. We’re on Hampstead Heath; you might want to talk to the district gardeners, starting with the males of the species." Sherlock grinned, unable to resist a Parthian shot. "After my father has talked to you, of course."

He climbed down the metal steps, past a bemused Anderson, and strolled back to the scene. Never stopping, even when his phone stirred to life briefly in his breast pocket. John was still on sentinel duty, deep in chat with one of Anderson’s underlings – Cardinal, Sherlock noted, who hid her own cigarettes in an old tea chest and sucked on a 50 piece to fight nausea at crime scenes when she thought no one saw her. Others, too, whose names resurfaced as he walked – Jones, Banerji, Pollock (owned a white ferret), Trotter, McGraw, Giulini. Cardinal saw him first and waved. John turned his head and Sherlock, glowing, waved back. He was coming home.

\-----------------------------------------------

"Googling up Ikea?" John asked two hours later. The lion was still missing, but so was one Leonard Steyne, head district gardener to Hampstead. Sherlock rather suspected they’d bolted off together, one carrying the other, and was channelling his efforts into finding the elusive crime weapon.

"Hmm, no. Text."

"Oh. Didn’t hear that one coming in."

"Hrmmm." Sherlock scuttled further back into the corner of the cab, holding the phone close to his eyes. John felt a merry tickle at the base of his throat, which he managed to hold back. Still, he hoped that Lestrade had stuck to tradition. "Well done" would do fine, or "So proud of you". Texters addressing Sherlock Holmes should have realised by now that some words in the English language came with their own caution, such as

amazing©2010Watson

or again

fantastic©2010Watson.


	3. Chapter 3

Mrs Rounders came out of her coma, the lion was found in Golders Green Park, a shabby Aslan lying with the ducks in  Biblical goodwill and digestive stupor, and Lestrade, under the influence of the gentle scene, texted Sherlock again.

He’d conducted a hasty opinion poll – a _third-degree_ style opinion poll, Gregson had fretted – among the fathers in the force and, dismissing the flightier options ( _Twilight_  was a no-go and "pissing contest" would probably have to wait another twenty-five years) had opted for a meal. In a public venue. His treat.

God, it almost felt like a rerun of his early dating efforts, minus the pesky libido and the last-minute raid into Ma’s hair mousse to stick up his fringe. 

"Case closed, open invite," he typed with studied laconism. "Your call." To Sherlock, that father-son business must still feel a bit weird. Like...like going through an investigation arse backward, Lestrade thought in a fit of inspired analogy. Starting with the big reveal only to dig further and further back into – well. Neither quite knew at that stage, did they? So don’t shy him off with plans, rules, duty hours, Lestrade admonished himself, checking his phone screen absently. Let him name the day and hour. And let you  _hide_  that sodding phone, for Pete’s sake; you’re the identified adult here.

 

He flattened his thumb over the screen with a glare, tugging at his desk drawer with his other hand – nice gimmick, these locked metallic affairs, if only he could remember where he'd put the tiny-tiny key. None of them did; he’d caught Gregson trying to picklock his with a paperclip the other day. And now Donovan was staring at him across her own desk.

 

Times, measures.

 

"Sergeant, I’ll need to borrow that helmet of yours for a —"

 

The loud tweets had them flinch in synch. " _Angelo’s, twelve. SH_." Well, well. No day like today, then, and it _did_ look as if they were getting into business after all. Oh, stop grinning, you loony. Not that he’d known what to expect, this being Sherlock’s call – anything from the Regency Cocoa Club to an egg sarnie in some tunnel or other, he splayed against the wall while his son and heir experimented on the British driver’s braking reflex. Oh, stop it right now.

 

"Still want my hat, sir?" Sally, biting down on her own smile. He gave up and grinned back madly, shaking his head.

 

"Nah, I’m going incognito. Family emergency. Cover for me till two, willya? I’ll make it up to you."

 

"Will do. And you just did." She waved her own mobile at him jauntily. " _Our_  big daddies are still looking for a face to go with their new slogan, you know. ‘ _We’re rough, we’re tough, but we totes love a laugh_.’ They're gonna love that happy smile."

 

"Donovan..."

 

"Oooh, did I get it wrong? Bugger, it’s on the tip of my tongue." She clicked it at his patient scowl. "Ah, yes. ‘ _We’re cops, we’re tops, and we’ll totes rip you dops_.’ No? Hold on..."

 

" _Total Policing_ , Sergeant. Ours not to wonder why, ours but to do and die." They both knew he disliked the ninjaspeak as much as she did.

 

She shrugged, opening the door to let him pass.

 

"Well, have fun. Give him our love. And the Clarence case if he’s teething – God knows it’s gritty, that one."

 

As parting shots went, this one barely grazed. But it did smart a bit, Lestrade thought, pitting his small Panda against the midday traffic lump. Because... was this why Sherlock had answered his text so readily? On the off chance of cadging a new case from his old man? Of course he’d be be pining for one now, and Sir George, poor sod, was a corpse after his own heart – fished out of a barrel of Mouton-Some-Muck-or-Other after he’d gone missing during a tour of Vinopolis. With Lestrade still trying to figure out why the French would name their wines after sheep. And how to bag Dickie, George’s horseracing baby brother and a very crooked penny in Lestrade’s book. But all this was neither here nor there, since Lestrade did not feel the least inclined to talk shop with Sherlock. What he wanted was to talk Sherlock with Sherlock.

 

To get to know Sherlock, at last. Not the sum of him because that was impossible, and he wasn’t even sure that was right, wanting to know someone inside out. Like Sherlock was another case to be cracked and boxed, which he wasn’t, not by Lestrade or anyone else, least of all that mad Irish stalker whose notion of courtship included blowing up his own singing telegrams. Lestrade shuddered and gripped his wheel harder. No, Sherlock would probably always remain inexplicable and Lestrade was fine with that.

 

But still. There was so, so much he didn’t know about that son of his. So many blind corners, because he could only look back as far as his years with Sherlock let him, and that wasn’t much of a view. Not showing him what Sherlock had been like as a kid, as a teen. What he’d liked to eat, to wear, what games he’d played. Lestrade gazed at the rows of cars moving on with slow, almost mechanical reticence, and found himself thinking back on penny pushers – the old models, though they were still a novelty for young Greg and his gang, hoarding their pocket money well ahead of the village fair so they could hone their technique over all of its seven days. Not for the cheap golden tokens, no. For what they stood for: the fun, their day in the sun. The bait in Deanna Noakes’s oblique eyes that if one of them reaped the loudest, shiniest tumble, he would get to kiss her behind the waltzers while Elvis Costello cheered them on.

 

 

...ah, those were the days. And perhaps Sherlock –

 

– nah, 'course not. Sherlock had been a child of means, raised in Switzerland, Chelsea, Eton. Hardly Lestrade’s division, those. Pursing his lips, the DI tried to conjure up a consulting toddler, clutching at a glass of milk as he deduced Nanny’s affair with the herdsman. Or clockmaker. Or local Willy Wonka. Fuck, he was hopeless at this. And how could he ask Sherlock what he’d been like at five, eleven,  _sixteen_ , without sounding like one of those press hounds his son hated with a passion?  _And what were you doing in the years from_  – oh, bother. Here was the place, anyway.

 

Sherlock, already seated and menu-ed when he came in, glanced up with his usual twitch of a smile. "You’re on a case," were his greetings words as Angelo, hurrying to the door, all but shook Lestrade out of his coat.

 

Lestrade sat down with a non-committal "Yeah".

 

"Good! We’re settled, then. The detective inspector had better have the –" and Sherlock, one hand raised as if he was conducting the order, spouted a flow of elastic dipthongs. Lestrade tagged ‘Rome’ on to ‘Eton’ and nodded haphazardly. "And I’ll have the  _scaglie di grana_ ," Sherlock concluded grandly, scooping up the menus and handing them to Angelo just as Lestrade stretched his arm across the table.

 

Angelo’s blinky stare morphed into a smile, but Lestrade’s eye had been quicker.

 

"And what’s that?" he inquired, his suspicions aroused. Whether Sherlock considered himself in on the new case or was still trying to locate the errant digging fork, now Mrs Rounders had confirmed his deductions, was a moot point. What mattered was that he would eat a decent meal for once. With bread. And greens. _And_ his dad.

 

His request met with ominous silence, Lestrade jutted his chin at Angelo.

 

"Make it a double order, yeah? What’s good enough for my son is good enough for me. I guess."

 

Angelo, caught between a rock and a hard place – or memories of one, if Sherlock’s gossip was to be trusted – bowed his head in defeat. "Shaved parmesan," he muttered. "I’ll bring you both the Chef’s special, Chief Inspector...  _Non m’avette mai ditto che quest’era tu padre_ " – this a deep-bellied whisper in Sherlock’s direction, before Angelo bolted off kitchenward.

 

" _E mi padre padrone_ ," Sherlock griped, crossing his arms compactly above his plate for all – staff, habitués and a few ornamental cured hams – to witness.

 

"Oi! What did you just –"

 

"That you’re, like, his commander and father." Young Billy, Angelo’s aide, was setting grissini sticks next to their glasses. He glanced at Sherlock. "Man, don't I know the feeling."

 

At least they were giving Angelo a chance to make it to  _Time Out_ ’s list of fun-lunch stops, Lestrade thought as he caught the eye of the little old lady sipping her coffee in the window corner. She smiled and made a few quick passes over the bowl of plastic fruit on the ledge. Gotcha loud and clear, he signaled back: parenting, indeed, was like juggling four oranges  _and_  a banana. Throw in a Molotov or two because this was Sherlock, and what the ever-blessed fuck was he supposed to do now? Sadly, Angelo’s return curtailed what in Lestrade’s opinion was rather high-skilled semaphore, with him using the grissini sticks next.

 

Meanwhile, Sherlock’s jutting lip could have supported an anvil, and the rest of his face was darkening like a storm. Literally darkening. Surely he couldn’t be – Lestrade leant forward to check. Bloody hell. He could. And was. Holding his breath like a five-year-old in a miff.

 

The old lady gave Lestrade a pitying look, tore her paper napkin in two and twisted the halves neatly around her index fingers. More sign language followed, Lestrade scrunching his eyes to follow. Looked like she was telling him either to finish the job himself and strangle the urchin, or go for diversion tactics and tell him a story.

 

Lestrade tapped his wine glass with an impatient forefinger. Jesus Christ, woman! He could hardly relate the Clarence case in public, could he, not when it was more red-taped than a Chinese festival lantern?

 

A coffee spoon nodded pertly at the cinema façade across the street. Judging from the swirl of candied pinks and blues, it had just launched into a Disney reviv –

 

Oh.

 

 _Oh_.

 

Right. Lestrade pushed his fork through a layer of tomato, basil, pesto, chicken and baby mozzarella, loading his right cortex with vitamins, and went for the dare. You never knew what Sherlock might or might not have deleted, but it was worth a try. Better than having to explain to John and his team why his first bonding trip had ended in infanticide through self-induced asphyxiation. Pray for me, he begged the old lady silently, and, before he could have second thoughts, spoke out.

 

 "So. Want to hear about that case of mine, son?"

 

The blue glare could have chilled his Pinot Grigio. "Not if it’s anything like your gastric routine,  _Dad_."

 

"Predictable, you mean? Oh, I don’t know. Bit of a weirdo, that one. Old old tale, from before I knew you, but we’re combing through a few of those right now. Spring cleaning, you might say. Does the name Snyder ring any bell with you?"

 

Sherlock, arms still twined into a deadlock, shook his head.

 

"Nah, didn’t think it would. They couldn’t keep it totally press-proof, but they did a pretty good job of hushing up the gristly stuff. So." Lestrade took a gulp of wine. "It all began when a bloke named Kingson, one of the City bigwigs, rigged up a private fashion show. All for the greater good, 'course, benefits to go to cancer research, bluh bluh buh. And so he packed his place full of toffs paying quality fees to ogle a bunch of quality girls. And among them was this girl, this blonde beauty, well, ashblond from what I could make of the CCTV, showing off a – what’s that name again – oh yeah. A Karl Lager outfit."

 

"Lager _feld_ , Lestrade." Voice still hoity-toity, but at least he had to be breathing.

 

"Whatever. Ella Snyder, she said her name was, but the odd thing was, no one seemed to know who she was and the Karlsberg people later said they’d never sent her in the first place. Anyway, there was some sort of midnight poll and most of the blokes voted for her, but when they called on Ella to fetch her prize, she couldn’t be found. They searched and  they searched, and in the end all they found was one of her evening shoes. Trendy plexiglass affair, with what Donovan tells me is called a wedge heel."

 

Sherlock yawned loudly.

 

"And her foot still in it."

 

There came a muffled sound of clapping from the corner, but Lestrade didn't hear it. Sherlock was gazing at him, mouth half-open, eyes bright and alert.

 

"Did they cut all the way round the fibular?"

 

"You bet."

 

"What was the cancer research lab involved?"

 

Lestrade leant over and, smiling, tapped his knife gently against Sherlock’s plate.

 

\------------------------------------------

 

"But don’t you see?" Sherlock’s excitement was palpable, if only because he insisted on working his deductions through a mouthful of zucchini. "Kingson wasn’t calling her ‘pumpkin’ at all; he was pressing for a deal! Pumpkin alkaloids have been on the forefront of cancer research for the last five years or so, and if Ella had high connections in the medical mafia..."

 

"Oh, yeah. Definitely a godfather backstage." Lestrade was finding it difficult not to grin, more at Sherlock’s newfound appetite than at their joint venture in gorying up a children’s classic. Vandalism, some would call it, but when he took in Sherlock’s face ablaze with excitement and a lick of tomato sauce at his mouth corner, all he could think was  _Magic_. Magic said it all, down to his own quiet flare of pride as he found himself, well,  _nurturing_  Sherlock for lack of a better word. Magic was the peacefulness, magic the sun pooling over the tables, the old coat rack, the corner granny sipping the  _grappa_  she’d ordered to see her through the tale, Sherlock’s pattern of breadcrumbs over the tablecloth...

 

...and the shadow impressing itself over the tablecloth, the crumbs and Lestrade’s hour of peace.

 

"So all you have to do is contact – oh, piss off, Mycroft."

 

"Sherlock. Inspector. My apologies for intruding upon your idyllic scene, but this is an emergency. Sherlock, I need you."

 

"Can’t." Sherlock glared up at his brother, snatching the last slice of garlic bread. "I’m on a case."

 

"Really?" Mycroft’s eyes were spidering over the remnants of their lunch. "I doubt it. The only thing here closely resembling a crime scene is your plate. And this is a matter of national importance. A Certain Someone among my most illustrious employers has had a Certain Something purloined, which causes her great trouble of soul. And there’s the little matter of her domestic entourage."

 

"Sherlock doesn't do divorce cases, Mr Hol –"

 

"I’m sure you can find Her bloody corgi yourself, Mycroft. As you can see, I’m rather busy right now."

 

"I must insist. Better for you to solve this quickly in the interest of all parties. You must have noticed the date?"

 

Lestrade watched Sherlock’s gaze turn fixed and almost shameful. The expected comeback didn't come.

 

"What’s this about the date?"

 

"Nothing that must concern you, Lestrade. Sherlock knows I have his best interests at heart."

 

"He means my trust fund." Sherlock’s voice came out smaller than nature, and he didn’t look at Lestrade as he spoke. "Father ensured that Mycroft would be the single trustee after his death, so by interests he really means the allowance that comes to me every month under his supervision. When I don’t do what he says, it – meets with unexpected delays."

 

"That so?" No longer an hour of peace. Quite the opposite, in fact, as Lestrade set down his napkin and swivelled on his chair to face a shuttered Mycroft. The kid is right, he thought suddenly. Here's an oyster of the first water. Mycroft Holmes, aka the shilly-shally shell with a delusion of grandeur. Well, time to grab the prising knife.

 

"Why wasn’t I told about this? I thought he was living off his cases, clients, whatever."

 

"Oh, my dear Inspector. Are we living in the same London? But I can assure you that Sherlock is vastly exaggerating. In any case, this is a matter that only extends to the Holmes estate. Sherlock, I’ll be waiting for you in the car."

 

"I think not." Lestrade was struggling to keep his voice clear of vinegar – oh, good one. "If it extends to Sherlock’s resources and Sherlock’s next-of-kins, then you’ll find I’m very much concerned. Come, Mr Holmes. You can’t expect me to take charge of him and then sit back and let you play bad cop when you like. If it’s an issue of trust, then Sherlock and Sherlock alone should decide who gets his. I’d rather my son didn’t depend on anyone for his per diem, but that’s up to him. Meanwhile –"

 

"Money is boring," Sherlock chipped in. He was looking at Lestrade with a new gleam in his eyes. "You should hear John going on about bills and expenses and our taxi fares. He says his blog motto should be YES WE CAB. But I don’t mind you being my trustee. It sounds – it sounds _right_."

 

In the silence that followed, Lestrade wondered if what he felt was his rib cage hugging his heart. He gave Sherlock’s wrist a quick squeeze before carrying on.

 

"Meanwhile, the Met want to get you on an official footing, Sherlock. It’s been a bit chaotic since word got around that you’re my son, what with Dimmock’s old mum showing up at his crime scenes, and Gregson’s au pair next – bit of a distraction for the lads, that. You’ll be a paid assis –" he gulped back the word in time. "A consulting expert, with appropriate consulting fees. So if you like, you can help your brother find that kidnapped dog –"

 

"Technically, a hound." Mycroft’s voice was still bland, but it did not escape Lestrade’s notice that he was patting his face with Sherlock’s napkin. The tomato added a nice Cain touch to his brow. "Her Majesty stopped breeding corgis five years ago. Basket Bill is a Ridgeback puppy."

 

Sherlock’s "What?" upped Lestrade’s "Who?" by a number of decibels, making the old lady drop her chequebook. Cheeks flushed, eyes glazed, he rose from his chair as if levitated into verticality and uttered in solemn tones " _Reaching back_  to you very very soon, dahling."

 

"Glad to hear it," Mycroft answered drily, but Sherlock had already run to the door, never looking back. Lestrade bit his lower lip and signaled for Angelo to bring the check. "What, no tiramisu, Inspector?"

 

\----------------------------------------------

 

They had a few halcyon weeks after that. But Lestrade, reflecting back on them, knew that he should have seen the storm coming.

 

He took Sherlock to watch the footie in his local pub and that went well enough, though he wished Sherlock had waited a tick before deducing that Britain’s favorite right forward was on steroids. Still, Lestrade did manage to dodge most of the pint glasses. As amends, Sherlock took him to Covent Garden to see  _Tosca_ , which was typical Sherlockian tact given the opera was mostly about a corrupt police jefe getting his just deserts. But gestures spoke louder than scenarii, as he told Mrs H., and the music was actually rather zippy.

 

He thought of telling Ma about Sherlock, but the doctors had been franker than usual about her heart condition and he didn’t know how she’d take it. She hadn’t taken the news of his divorce well at all, had accused him of running truant once too many. Still, this was a thought for the future.

 

He wondered if Sherlock, at some future point, would call him anything else than Lestrade.

 

Then Moriarty struck again, sweeping the ground beneath their feet and jeopardizing all their futures with one final, lethal pun. 


	4. Chapter 4

The bolt, when it fell at last, did not fall with a boom, a bang or (to revive young Greg’s once-favourite lyrics) a jumpin’ jack flash. The bolt was of the Moriarty school and knew better than to go the way of all flash.

 

Instead, the bolt - chirped.

 

Lestrade heard it on his way home, under a six o’clock sky where the shadows had been gathering hard and fast on each side of the sun, pulling the sun down in their hurry to get to the bottom of the day. _Me too_ , Lestrade thought, and closed his eyes briefly against the livid grey light, temples still aching under the pressure of nothing achieved. A headachy day, spent doing what they called  _office stakeout_  in Met lingo, every task going on and round and round and on, until they felt like a glutinous – oh Christ. Oh fuck, not now. Not again.

 

But his hand was already closing on the phone, going through the motions. Then he glanced at the screen and slouched back against the headrest, smiling.

 

Texts from John did that. As a rule, they were short, salutary and point-blank – like the man himself, Lestrade thought fondly. He had tried to impart this to John during one of their pub meet-ups, after he'd had a few pints on board. To which John had replied that  _S and I backed into Tesco by doting crow,_ followed by  _Crowd, blast it_ , then  _Meant that fuvatgirly_ , then  _Holding off posse with frzen cutlets. S won’t sign baby prats._ and finally  _Prams. Sherlock Holmes prams now. Mayday!_  didn't deserve that much praise, and next round was on him.

 

Taking advantage of the next red light, Lestrade checked the text. He could do with a night out, or even a night at 221B, now that Mrs Hudson had been let in on the Big Reveal. (She had all but hoisted him off the ground in her slender arms, babbled of A Father to His Men and Secret Identity Identity – Mrs Hudson, it appeared, knew her TV Tropes to a tee – and produced a spare key.) Could even do with one of Mrs H’s little pick-you-ups, as she liked to call them. Little pull-you-ins, Lestrade thought in his private fund of wisdom, because if that lemongrass tea had ever been kith or kin to lemon, he was Sir Elton John. Still, it beat Nurofen at the end of the day.

 

 _Check my blog asap_.

 

Ah. Touch of business here. Lestrade parked the car and got out, bracing himself against the cold pelts of rain that soaked his mac collar and plastered it to his neck in a cold mould. By the time he reached his street, the rain had dulled all the colours, leaving only the big yellow M across the street, with its promise of belly comfort, donuts, the nondescript warmth of strangers who’d never think of asking after his day. It tugged at him, and Lestrade’s feet shuffled before the lighted façade. But.

 

_Check my blog asap._

 

The air in the flat chilled his shoulders even after he’d peeled off his mac and headed to his room. He needed a cuppa, Lestrade thought. He needed a hot water bottle. He needed a son that would stop tinkering with his boiler when the only derivative to boredom was to cosplay Henri Landru. What he had was an aging laptop and a cold tickle to his heart.

 

_22nd of April_

_The Nobbled Bachelor_

 

Because John’s text had been – short, yeah. Curt, even. Short of urgent. Lestrade knew urgent, worked at its beck and call and could trace its pulse even in a toneless call. But John hadn’t called. Hadn’t even updated his blog, and Lestrade knew about the case already. Not one of his (his chiefs knew better than to assign Greg Pick-of-the-Press Lestrade to a media-related case) but he knew the DI in charge, had pointed her to Sherlock. While he skimmed over the post, he ran a hand through his bedraggled hair, raising the spikes and tufts of his teen years.

 

 _This one you’ve probably heard about_ , John had written.  _Chances are you watched it live on Channel Five_.  _The murder, I mean_.  _We did, because Sherlock has been reading about bees, don’t ask me why, and said he wanted to compare their courting ritual with ours. (No, really, don’t.)_

 

Once again Lestrade’s heart grew warm at the words, his unease suspended. Because Sherlock had done his research. Because the final picture in that scrapbook Lestrade had given him a month or so ago was one of Ma in her garden, seeding chamomile between the crazy-paving slabs, her four beehives lined up against the garden wall. Lestrade had taken that pic himself, so he knew there was a bee resting on Ma’s head, though with all the sun and her wild white hair it had come out a mere fleck on the film – until submitted to a high-functioning magnifying glass.

 

 _I pointed out there_  was  _a difference, because_   _even reality telly draws the line at suicide by happy ending, so he mustn’t expect to see the human drone flop down and die before his eyes. But then, reality telly did prove me wrong when rich, handsome, made-in-Chelsea Bobby St Simon, Channel Five’s Chosen One, keeled over into the flower bed just after kissing his twenty-fifth bride hello._

 

 _I say hello, you say goodbye,_ Lestrade thought as he scrolled on. He knew the particulars of the case. Tall, buxom ‘Hattie Doran’ had stepped out of the black Cadillac and walked up to the lucky man with a let’s-get-started stride. Then she had put up a hand to her blond hair, tossed it loose in the best L'Oréal fashion, mwah-mwahed at Mr St Simon’s cheek and pushed a gilded hairpin all the way into his heart, leaving him in no shape to carpe the diem and pick the bride. The stroke had been masterful, causing the poor sod to gurgle helplessly under the filming crew’s blasé gaze. Hattie, meanwhile, had used the precious seconds to reach the posh villa behind him, turn a corner and vanish into thin air while everyone else was regrouping in the rudbeckias.

 

 _No one has seen or heard of the 38-year-old private gym instructress since. Her DNA hasn’t been matched as yet, and her Chelsea address turned out to be a decoy. Yesterday, Sherlock was asked if he could help trace the murderess, and though he hasn’t been able to find her yet, he did spot an interesting clue. While Ms Doran’s signature is fairly consistent on her (fake) passport and the various application forms she had to fill for the show, in one case she misspelled her first name as ‘Hathi’. Now Hathi, you may remember, is the name of the elephant colonel in Kipling's_ Jungle Book _. Sherlock is positive that this slip of the pen betrays an affinity between the killer and one or several of the following:_

 

_1\. The British Army_

_2\. The_ crème de la crème _British Army_

_3\. Wild fauna_

_5\. The South Asian subcontinent_

_5\. Walt Disney_

 

_... but says he needs more data before he can start eliminating the improbable._

_Today was marked by little progress as Sherlock’s brother turned down Sherlock’s request that he liaise for us with Save the Elephants (M, if you’re reading this, he didn’t mean it_ quite _the way you heard it). Sherlock has now bagsied the sofa, where he is doing his celebrated Thinking Sarcophagus act. I’m thinking bangers and mash for dinner._

 

So far, so good. Well, not so good casewise, but nothing to ruffle the father’s fears underneath the commander. Lestrade flicked a raindrop off the tip of his nose and tackled the comments.

 

_ Harry Watson _

_Well, bang a drum and fuck a duck. And you say I’m the one who drunk-blogs._

 

_ John Watson _

_Harry, I’m really trying to keep this a family blog._

 

_ Harry Watson _

_... So what? I’m sodding family!_

 

_ Bill Murray _

_Mate, I’d be on the lookout if I were you. They’ll be searching for a fill-in even as you type!_

 

_ Molly Hooper _

_You didn’t say I did the post-mortem! He looked dead gorgeous!_

 

_ Molly Hooper _

_How do you edit your comments here?!_

 

_ Sherlock Holmes _

_Really, John. Blogging about a case in progress is bad enough; there’s no need to trumpet my private interests to the British public._

 

_ Sherlock Holmes _

_And ‘murder live’ is a contradiction in terms._

 

_ John Watson _

_Could have done worse. Could have given in to Mrs H and let her do the write-up in MiC slang, for one thing._

 

_ Sherlock Holmes _

_... I’ll be thankful for small mercies._

 

_ Sherlock Holmes _

_And your narrative skills seem to be on the mend, John._

 

_ Mrs Hudson _

_OMG, boys, you’re totes dorbs!_

 

_ Anonymous _

_Oh, Sherlock, Sherlock. How many Rich Bachelors must I dispatch to drive my point home? Third time had better be the charm, gorgeous. Are you really so fallible that you can’t take a hint? Or is it you're afraid to take a fall, a splatable, turntable fall, a direct fall_ _from upright to horizontal? But wait. Flip a fall, children, turn it inside out, and what do you hear? All together now. A LAUGH!_

_Time to choose a side, Sherlock. Or has all work and no play made you a dull boyo?_

 

_ Sherlock Holmes _

_Interesting. I... think I’ve got your point._

 

_ Anonymous _

_Finally, he’s joined the dots! Sooo. Last one up is a sissy?_

 

_ Sherlock Holmes _

_Last one up, in my experience so far, is a winner._

 

_Anonymous_

_:-P_

_Better get on getting there, then. Better for everyone involved. Mr...Holmes._

\--------------------

The night rain was thick and dark and everywhere when Lestrade let himself out again. It pushed into his eyes as he waited on the kerb, anger bristling across the tears, Sherlock’s voice very distant in his ear. He hung up on the answering machine and let the rain have its way with him, crinkling his eyes against the yellowgold floater at the edge of vision. 

A woman passing by stopped, forgetting to chitter on into her phone as she watched the grey-haired man glare furiously at a MacDonald’s sign. He was muttering under his breath, and she caught the words before the lights came on, the cars slowed down, and the rattle-drum of rain drowned the rest. ‘Copper up’ they were, and she giggled correspondingly into her phone. ‘He said Copper Up,’ she explained to the friend with whom she would soon be eating sushis. 'What does that even mean?' The friend said to be careful, London these days was packed with more nuts than a box of Kellogg’s, and what the police had to say about that  _she_  couldn’t say for sure.

 

\-----------

 

"Haven’t seen head or tail of him, no. Hmm. Coat tails, that would be."

John stepped out of the kitchen with a pot of coffee, and Lestrade gave in to the rough soothing smell, warming his fingers to the mug. "And before you ask, he’s not answering my calls either."

 

Lestrade sighed into the curl of steam. He had kept the evening at arm’s length till now, and didn’t want to let go quite yet.

"Okay. Right. Better start at the beginning. That first comment - you didn’t notice it when it went up?"

"Nope. Busy day at the surgery. Hay fever, church picnic diarrhoea, senior cricketers gone on rampage, take your pick.  _I_  took a break at six, and there it was." John’s gaze flicked to his across the low tabletop, hard lapis blue. "Anonymous. As if."

 

"You sure? That blog of yours is getting big, John. For all we know, it could be a hoax."

 

"Sherlock doesn’t think so, does he?"

 

"Sherlock –" Lestrade’s voice caught at the back of his throat and he cleared it quickly. "You know how he is. He’ll go tit for any rat’s tat if he feels there’s a challenge involved."

 

"No, Greg. Sorry, but no." John rose, and Lestrade saw how the casual slope of his arm had tautened, fingertips brushing his hip absently. John was still calm, but John was prepared. Had been from the moment he’d texted Lestrade. "Trust me. Once you’ve heard Moriarty, heard him whisper at your ear...you can't mistake that voice again. That viciousness. No, it’s him all right. Live on the Web, the spider. Out – there."

 

He knew that John’s wave of hand wasn’t intended for the four walls and Mrs Hudson’s grunge Victorian wallpaper, that she said was "sweetly tulipy" though to Lestrade it looked more like Martian artichokes on the warpath. But it kindled the truth of the room, that wave of hand: all the small touches and alliances that proclaimed John and Sherlock as a twosome, down to the blue dressing gown gently thrown over a red-and-grey tartan blanket, or the  _Daily_   _Express_ poised open on Sherlock's music stand. There was no telling when the nest-building had begun at 221B, but in that instant Lestrade saw, Lestrade observed, and Lestrade knew he would carry the fight to its last raw stand before he allowed anyone to blight that nest.

 

"Let’s get there, then." He saw John wince and squeezed his arm in apology. "You read the psychotic little scrote. Same old riddle-me-this, but the quip about the Rich Bachelor got me thinking. Remember that anonymous comment on Sherlock’s site, two months ago?"

 

John nodded tightly. "Sherlock never paid much attention when it came, but I did.  _Reaching back to you_. And then the case with the dog. Ridgeback. It’s a tie-up, yeah. But what does that leave us with?" The air rustled, and something landed on Lestrade’s knees with a muffled thump. He picked up the copy of  _London A-Z_  but didn’t open it. "I’m putting my money on London, because he’s done it before. Took us down memory lane – remember the pink phone? Except I don’t know where to look. Ridge Avenue? Ridge Drive? Or Court, Road, Hill, Gate, Park... God knows how many you’ll find just inside of England."

 

"One hundred and thirty-four." Lestrade set the book down gently. "Twelve in Greater London, so we’re starting there. Got in touch with most of the borough commands and Chaaya – that’s Banerji – is tracing his phone. MacGrawth is tracking the comments; won’t go far but I’m taking any baby step on the offer. Sally, poor lass, was the first to think of the Ridgeback bikes, so she’s sorting manufactures. She volunteered." He countered John’s slow blink with a smirk, the first of the evening. "What? I have my Regulars."

 

"Told him." A muted chuckle. "That he would have to run with the Pack and hunt with the Pack, from now on."

 

Point-blank, Lestrade thought, point-blank. John Watson would know his Kipling, with or without a case. Lestrade himself wasn’t too big on books, but his childhood readings had caught up with him in the last years, and the much-loved words spilt out before he knew he was speaking them.

 

" _I have the Pack and I have thee; why should I be afraid?_ "

 

And Mowgli had been a winner, Lestrade thought, willed John to think as his phone stirred alight in his chest pocket. He took it out. Two matching descriptions in Lambeth, one in Islington. But Sherlock’s skills were unmatched, and Lestrade stayed poised.

 

"Well, he doesn’t have me now." A matt-eyed John, his words tipped with steel, his head lowered as if he was addressing his own two hands, clenched into balls on his knees. Looking at them, Lestrade was reminded of the old saying that a man’s two fists, put together, gave you the measure of his heart. "Fuck, it’s square one all over again. Sherlock blind-dating a killer and taking the pill as an afterthought. Oh, _fuck_ . Sorry, Greg, that was – but you don’t know how stark, staring,  _raving_  mad it makes me, him running off on his own. Just like before. And to Moriarty, of all killers."

 

Lestrade checked his phone again. "Midnight. He has till midnight to come clear, then I’m siccing Mr Government on him." And Mycroft would make him eat humble pie this time, not tiramisu, but Lestrade couldn’t care less. He’d gobble it all down _and_  face Sherlock’s outrage if it got him a clear answer as to the boy’s whereabouts. Jesus. God. Mary and the entire holy cast. He was beginning to understand why the Almighty had found it more than enough to raise an only son in a span of two millenniums.

 

"Yeah. And when he comes back –"

 

"Yeah," Lestrade chimed quietly. He knew the answer to that one. Sherlock would come back and Sherlock would be claimed, with all the relevant sound and fury, but claimed he would be.Like before. Like Mowgli. Bouncing off fire in hand, straight to the tiger’s lair, and even if Lestrade got there first and stood there with his arms outstretched and a NO TRESPASSING placard round his neck, Sherlock would still be a bounce ahead. God, oh god. The drugs had been bad enough, but this –  _these_  danger nights – was worse. Because fire burns, danger burns, and Sherlock didn’t give a damn if the whole jungle turned into a blazing barbecue. Seen in that light, the game full on, Sherlock felt less like a son and more like a... a changeling, yeah. Strange and eerie and far away, and as incompatible with all of Lestrade's values as his clear blue eyes were with Lestrade’s earthbrown ones.

 

And still, Lestrade knew that he would claim the changeling. Again and again, seven times seventy-seven if required, to be held and forgiven - and warmed back into a son in his heart, which now ran its own maddened track.

 

He straightened up.

 

"I’d better go see if there’s anything new. They’re all pulling an extra shift for him."

 

"I’ll wait. God knows I hate it. Feels like the mud-end of war all over again."

 

Lestrade didn't answer, but stepped forth and gave John a stiff little hug, wrapping his two arms around the doctor and matching word to action with a ‘Keep you in the loop’. A first, that hug – his and John’s effusions were usually kept to the odd manly pat, the clap, shake or thump according to context – but there is a time for everything, and a season for everything, and now was the time to give his son's mate a speed-blessing. The Talk could wait until they’d located Sherlock.

 

\-------------------------------

 

The warmth was a surprise. He was barely through the door when it swathed him like an invisible cloud, leaving him foggy-eyed with a nice prickling sensation all over his neck and cheeks. Looked like someone had set his boiler –

 

"Where the hell have you been?" he hollered, not bothering to inspect the door lock. Sherlock had been given a key to Lestrade’s flat in bygone days, after he'd tried to picklock his way in when he was high as a grasshopper with a case of hiccups. So high he'd picked the wrong door and paid Mrs Kemhuff, Lestrade’s bed-ridden neighbour, a surprise visit. "Came right at me with his _big_ screwdriver. Nice bit of shirt, too," was Mrs Kemhuff’s version of the scrape, told with ribald glee to her daily visitor, Lestrade, and whoever had stopped by in the following days.

 

"Here." The long shadow before the curtained window did not raise his voice. Lestrade exhaled slowly, giddy with relief and thermal shock. He groped for his phone and typed a quick text.  _Here with me. Might keep him for the night_.

 

"And would it have  _killed_  you to let me know? D’you have any idea of the ruckus you caused tonight? John’s mad with you, not half, not that I blame him. Those comments on his blog – Look, you’d better call him first and apologise properly. I've no idea who that fucker was, or why you thought it funny to play along –"

 

"Lestrade." Sherlock turned his face, slatted with the half-light that filtered through the blinds, and Lestrade realised only then that none of the lamps had been turned on in the living room.

Sherlock motioned to the sofa almost shyly. "Can we –sit a moment? I know this is the part when you box my ears and feed me pastry, but I’d rather we put it off until my return. At least the pastry."

 

"Your return." Lestrade’s feet coaxed him across the floor and up to the couch, where he fell in a graceless heap. Automatically, he reached for the tight spot between the arm and the couch cushion, only to find that Sherlock had beaten him to the cache and was lighting one himself.

 

"Ta." The scald of tar on his tongue made him cough. He closed his eyes on the second intake, deep and pungent, letting the smoke eddy down his chest. Needed. Welcome. He looked for a chink of light in the whole evening and, not finding any, shifted so that he could face Sherlock.

 "So. Jim Moriarty."

 

"Obviously. I put it to DI Patterson that Ms Doran was, in fact, Jim’s pet henchman. It’s fascinating, really. An ex-army man, with incredible expertise in camouflage –"

 

" _Sherlock_." Lestrade opened his eyes, summoning his last morsel of strength. It wasn’t fair, really. The ordinary fathers forbade their ordinary sons to go night-clubbing, or drink at home, or use their car. They didn’t have to awe a six-foot genius into being good and letting others be clever with rabid psychopaths. "Don’t even think of sidetracking me," Lestrade growled, trying to catch Sherlock’s eye behind the smoke screen between them. "I’ve had enough of that for tonight. Did you crack his code?"

 

Sherlock did not answer.

 

"Yeah, well. Kudos for not making tonight an all-out mess-up. I guess. Where is he?"

 

He heard the nervous rhythm of Sherlock’s foot on the floor. But the rest of Sherlock kept still, kept up the smoke and shadow, and Lestrade’s weariness got the better of him. He stubbed out the half-smoked cig on the floor, not caring if it singed a board.

"Why did you come here, then? If you’re so set on doing everything your own way, never mind that John and I have been eating our blood over you" – _se ronger les sangs_ , the odd, old phrase his Da’s father had used sometimes, and his Da years later, oddly resurfacing. "What d’you expect me to do? Drag you all the way to the Yard and clap you in a cell? Because I would, if I had a crap’s worth of faith that you’d stay there. God, Sherlock." He swallowed against the tar and saliva, conscious that his next words would be a plea. "At least, take John with you."

 

"You said –" Sherlock was cradling his cigarette to his mouth, both hands cupped before his face, but his voice came out with unexpected clarity. With unexpected sadness, too. "You said that you would tell me what’s right."

 

"Yes," Lestrade said, not allowing himself to hope.

 

"If there was a threat." Lestrade could hear how Sherlock's breath quickened into a hum. Not nerves, then.  _Fear._  "If I thought that someone close, very close to me was threatened, possibly under a death sentence unless I went alone. Would you still hold it against me to go?"

 

Yes, Lestrade thought stubbornly, challenging his own shadowed room with a set face. Yes, yes, yes,  _yes_. Then shame struck, because Sherlock’s someone had received a hug and a blessing from him not three hours before. He shook his head.

 

"That’s something for John to answer, not I."

 

"But I’m asking you."

 

"Then you’re asking too much." Lestrade turned and grabbed a handful of curls, tugging gently until Sherlock had to bend his face to him and their foreheads were touching. This, this was the bond he’d worked on all these months. His claim, his  _We be of the same blood, you and I._ How like Sherlock to meet him halfway only by forcing an impossible choice on him.

"Look, there have to be ways I can help. We’ll think of something. I... I won’t tell John if you like. Just, don’t go. Not tonight. It’s getting late and your old man is too old and grey and knackered to make sense right now. C’mon, lad. Gimme that."

 

Sherlock gave a little huff of laugh. "Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve been going on about your grey hair."

 

"That’s what old men do, sunshine. Be wrinkled and white by the time you have kids of your own."

 

"I don’t intend to – Lestrade, are you trying to sidetrack me?"

 

"Well, yeah. But I'll still tell you about the birds and bees if you like. Heard you had a vested interest in the latter." He waited, but Sherlock did not rise to the bait. His forehead was growing heavier, though, and Lestrade moved a little so Sherlock could drop his head onto his father's shoulder.

 

"Hush worrying, lad." The words were familiar, though he was too tired to remember if they’d been spoken to him or by him, back in the days when a strung-up, itchy Sherlock was already battling sleep. He stroked the side of Sherlock's face, runing his hand lightly down the dark curls.

"Yesterday is almost over."

 

\-----------

 

When he opened his eyes, the day was churning a pale white sky through the slats. He was stretched out on the sofa, still in his clothes, a blanket tucked in on either side.

 

Sherlock was nowhere visible, but there were traces of him in the kitchen: an empty cup and an open notebook. Pages had been torn out, crumpled up after a few lines. Lestrade smoothed one over with his fist and recognised Sherlock’s long-legged writing.

 

_Lestrade. I have made every disposition of my property_

 

 

 

 ------------

This time, he called Mycroft.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter to go, I think, so I'll just drop in quickly to thank everyone who's been following this so far on AO3 for their support. You're the best!

In the end - and an unusually un-British show of unfairness -, Mycroft blamed the fish.  
  
Unfairly, for the fish was as innocent as a newborn lamb. In fact, the fish _was_ a newborn, which was why it had drawn Mycroft away from the old-boy gloom of the Diogenes Club to a small office in Number Ten, where the fish was now being examined. Well, figuratively. Since it featured on a four-inch newspaper picture, dangling from the hook, line and sinker of the great personage usually refered to as OMW in Mycroft’s business correspondence.  _Our Man in Westminster_ , an acronym tried and true, though he often suspected Anthea, when she texted out his correspondence with her eyes lowered and a Mona Lisa smile, of rephrasing it as  _Outta My Way_.  
  
"His Principal Private Secretary swears that it was a six-month mackerel," Mycroft’s first interlocutor, a grey and greying eminence known as  _the_  Featherstonehaugh, was hissing. "Says they had it in pâté for starters. But now the  _Daily Mail_  has got hold of an expert from Geneva – a Swiss sea doctor, would you believe this – and the man say it's actually underage. A sprog. A sea toddler. A mackerelet. A scaly infant."  
  
"Ah. Yes, this is...unfortunate." Mycroft’s quick-change mouth drooped to express suitable concern. He was aware that in another timeframe, the infant would have followed its pâted course to OMW’s stomach juices in full anonymity. But this was March 2010, with the Shanghai Universal Exhibition and its Haibo mascot in full swing. "Save the Sea" was the cause du jour, with Madame Brigitte Bardot and the Duchess of York both swearing off red tuna for themselves and their little cats, and the Great British Public all set to boo at the baby-snatcher. Mycroft leant back in his seat, scrunched his brow into a pensive knot, and prepared to enjoy the fun.  
  
More and wetter hissing followed, showcasing words like "eco-conscious", "EU Secretaryship", "Greenpeace", "Switzerland" (twice), and Mycroft’s private  _bête noire_ , "sportsmanship".  
  
"Still, it could be worse," his second interlocutor, a donnish little counsellor cut in. "Think, only think, if it had been a  _porpoise_."  
  
Mycroft’s private mobile chose that moment to buzz. He cast the text a quick glance. Oh dear. The detective inspector had forgotten his restraining order on Mycroft’s interference with his and Sherlock’s affairs, and was demanding a return call ‘asap’. Typical Lestrade, in letter and spirit. Mycroft silenced the phone with an apologetic smile and an inward vengeful grin. Yes, let the man boil an hour or two in his own troubled waters. After all, CCTV had spotted Sherlock entering his place yesterday night and nothing since, meaning that all was for the best... in the best of all Sherlock-saddled worlds.

He himself had another brat, well, sprat to deal with.  
  
Half an hour in, Mycroft was thoroughly enjoying himself. There had been five more calls from Lestrade. Number Ten’s chef had shown up with home-roasted coffee, upping his revenge to a dish piping hot. And the talk had reached that desperate, delicious plateau where everyone was groping for front page epiphanies, including the little adviser’s proposal that the PM adopt an orphan tuna and raise it as his son.  
  
The door clicked open, letting in Anthea’s lovely face. Lovely and, Mycroft noticed, unsmiling. Not even a Da Vinci twitch.  
  
"Sir." She was holding up her BlackBerry primly and left-handedly. Trouble at hand, Mycroft decyphered, and set down his cup. "Your Brussels appointment. I’m afraid you need to leave now, or you’ll miss your plane by a fair hair."  
  
In the pause between her words and his intake of breath -  _between the idea and the reality, between the emotion and the response_ , Father’s pet dead poet, dead on, unwelcome – he gave himself up to his mind. Let his mind turn heart-like, swelling and clenching to release an onrush of data, faces, risks, running through him like another fevered pulse.

Average men, men like Lestrade, said "not on my beat" and didn’t give the phrase another thought. When it came to Sherlock’s safety, Mycroft’s brain gave the beat a joyride.  
  
_Five years_ , he didn’t answer Mr Featherstone’s plea of "Five minutes more?", for it had been that long since he’d last heard the coded words. Instead, he dictated the ten-word dispatch that would lay the unholy mackerel at rest.  
  
There was no Brussels on today’s agenda. There was rarely a Brussels at all, because Mycroft had made it clear from the beginning that it was up to the Mahomets of this world to climb up his mountain in their hour of need.  
  
But there was every reason to leave now, because  _fair hair_  in Anthea’s mouth was code for  _Sherlock_  and  _punch it, sir_. The name Sherlock had meant "fair hair" in age-old times, which was why Mycroft had chosen it as their emergency signal. In memory of and sorrow for his endless teasing of the child whose hair had turned darker every year, while Mother, Father and he all stuck to their tame auburn. "A name can turn against you," he had told Anthea upon hiring her as his one-woman team; looking at her while she looked at him, shrewd in their mutual understanding. And yet he had turned Sherlock’s name into this all-important code, that kept every other business on hold while Mycroft put together all the king’s horses and all the king’s men his little brother knocked over in his mad romps.  
  
Mummy had chosen the name, Mycroft knew. An attempt at... colour camouflage? Making little Sherlock one of them? Except it hadn't. Had Father known, even then, or suspected? Had the name sprung the first shadow, the first silence between them that would later become Father not talking for days on, especially in the summers when Sherlock was released from school? The matter had never been raised between them, but it had left Mycroft with a precocious sense of love, double-dealing and the value of silence. He had taken his legacy and acted on it, until a file named  _Gregory Simon Lestrade_  was laid before him and he stared at a stranger’s face, handsome in a British puggish way, under a still-dark thatch of hair.  
  
\------------------------------------

  
Silver had it all now. Silver and ash, because Lestrade’s face looked as crimpled as it was possible for a face to be. But tough, Mycroft reflected, sitting at the man’s desk and listening to his clipped report on the night before. Ungiving. A  _straight-backed_  face if the image made any sense, which it did for him.

And the man must have found some impossible way of flashing a light down the twists and turns of Mycroft's mind, because just as  it struck  _silver_ , Lestrade was saying "...something about my grey hair. He, huh, he's fond of the joke. And then, I must have fallen asleep. He was gone by morning, can’t say when or where. Or what that disgusting little twerp has in store for him." He crossed to Mycroft’s right, leaning over to strike a key on his office computer. "I've told nobody yet. Will you help?"  
  
Mycroft nodded. He scanned the computer screen, frozen on John’s blog entry and its glut of comments, searching for a pulse. A clue. "Not London, Mr Lestrade –"  
  
"Greg. Please."  
  
Mycroft caught the olive branch in his stride and pushed on. "You see, London is yesterday’s coup. Where he used John to bait Sherlock. He could do it again, of course, but like most gamesters and all narcissists, he’s reluctant to show the same hand twice. He needs to one-up his ante. And I fear very much that his new ante is...a certain Lestrade."  
  
"He plans to use  _me_? » Lestrade was all but choking. "What d’you mean? I’m still here, Mycroft. I’m safe enough here, I’m... I’m... oh. You mean he knows about me and Sherlock."  
  
"Oh, yes. He’s targeting the  _Wunderkind_ , not the lover." Mycroft touched a spot on the bright patch of screen. "And his clue is here."  
  
"...  _a fall, a splatable, turntable fall, a direct fall from upright to horizontal_. I don’t see..."  
  
"Few people would," Mycroft murmured, "unless closely acquainted with the classics. Jim Moriarty knows that my brother’s knowledge of literature is nil – believe it or not, he used to think that a Bovary was some sort of STI. But there’s nothing on earth and heaven, Horatio, that Google won’t root out for you if you ask nicely. Sherlock asked; Google delivered.  _Splatable_  and  _turntable;_  yes, these are Mr Moriarty waxing poetic. The rest is a quote."  
  
He glanced at Anthea, whose fingertips had just come to rest on her own screen. She looked back, her Florentine face well in place. But her voice was gentle, gathering them in a loose envelope of sympathy.  
  
"Thomas Hardy, Detective Inspector.  _The Return of the Native_."  
  
"Perfidy, thy name is Switzerland. As Mr Featherstonehaugh is bound to agree. Better arrange for take-off now, my dear, we’ll sort out longitudes on the fly." _Ridgeback_ , Mycroft's polyglot brain sang out, _Richebac, Reichbach_. There was something. There had to be.  
  
"Or Ireland," Greg cut in sharply. "Could be a double-edged clue. Him wanting to play this game on _his_ turf."  
  
"No, no, Switzerland it is. Look at the next line."  
  
" _Last one up is a sissy_?"  
  
"Mmm, yes. From the little I’ve seen of him, Mr Moriarty is an expert on costumed drama. The Sissi films, you will recall, were based on Elizabeth of Austria, whose death by murder in Geneva –"  
  
But Greg was reading on. " _Better for everyone involved_. Everyone involved in – Sherlock’s birthplace?"  
  
Mycroft waited.  
  
" _Fuck_ " came next, Lestrade’s explosive shortcut to feeling, before his mouth fell slack under the shock. « Oh fuck, that’s why he came. To me. Because I’d said to, that all he had to do was ask, and I’d tell him what was right. He didn’t come to apologize, 'course not. Not him. No, he came asking for - for clearance to, to... And I never saw! Of all the useless, thoughtless, sodding – _I thought he meant John_!"  
  
Once upon a time, in an afternoon so far gone it was now dimmed to dusk in his mind, Mycroft had shown a bored five-year old how to lace his milk with water and make invisible ink. _Warmth does it_ , he’d told Sherlock after they’d pinched a sheet of Father’s Consulatory writing-paper. And then Sherlock, holding Mycroft’s hand as he still did in those days, had conducted a sharp-eyed vigil before the oven, never relaxing until the paper had been taken out again, and the letters had bloomed into pale brown life. Now Mycroft made himself look at Lestrade’s face, open and convulsed with fondness, and felt as if letter after letter were taking shape there, until all of Sherlock’s secret writing lay in the open, warmed by Lestrade's heart.  
  
"Not that I said yes, not even when he said, and, Christ! Never. Not now, not in a thousand years, because it’s the one thing he doesn’t get from me, permission to cover for his dad. Oh, God help me." Lestrade looked up, eyes fiercely wet, oblivious to the whiplash of sound over their heads. "And God help my idiot boy."  
  
"I live to serve," Mycroft answered drily, but he made a point of looking about for his umbrella while Lestrade ruined a decent jacket sleeve.  
  
\-------------  
  
His third time in Switzerland and, in Lestrade’s decided opinion, anything but the charm.

First time had been his escapade in Geneva, land of milk and honey and his little wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am interlude in the British Consulate’s garden. Second time had been sheer wham and bam, a wild goose chase (said Europol) or Easter egg hunt (said a beaming Sherlock) after a bomb cleverly hidden in Zurich Airport. Third time was here and now, press-ganged on every side by a roaring blue sky that sent his guts up his lungs at every crosswind. Lestrade thought of their final destination and sickened. Eight hundred feet if he was to trust the oracle seated next to him, which meant twice their current altitude, reversed. It felt completely surreal.  
  
"You sure?" he bawled into Mycroft’s ear, tact and diplomacy be hanged. "I mean, a sodding  _waterfall_?"  
  
The roar swallowed Mycroft’s answer. Lestrade made out  _Napoleon_ ,  _pyramid_  and something that sounded like  _karma of the vertically challenged_. He strained his neck, watching the strange ground as it solidified out of the clouds, brown and white and serrated, then dark pine green, then a stretch of lighter green with a big  _H_  marked out in white. For Holmes?  
  
"For _helipad_ , Greg." Had he been thinking aloud? A door slid open at his elbow, and he managed a stiff, rickety landing on his own. A field, its cowpats spread an inch from his office brogues. And mustard flowers, though he couldn’t remember how he remembered the name. The air smelt foreign, too clean, still a touch of winter in the cloudy sky. "You mustn’t overrate my field of influence."  
  
But when they reached the fence, the barbed wire had been cut open and there was a car waiting on the road. Another of Mycroft’s Leviathans, streamlined, dark-paned, and – Lestrade’s dizziness rose a notch – snow-white. Oh yeah, Switzerland. Where even the doormats were white, lying at the foot of  the brown chalets with their red roofs and gentle lace windows. Row upon row of them until it felt as if they were skidding along an endless trail of postcards and this was all surface, all tricks and mirrors. _Sod it all_ , he thought as their path took them up into the air again, curve after mountain curve, _sod the whole jaunt into Moriarty’s Waterland_.  
  
"Let us count ourselves lucky if he ends up merely wet, Greg."  
  
And sod Mycroft, speaking from a misshapen sense of charity. And Lestrade knew the tune from having preached it to every rookie on his team.  _When I say be prepared, I really mean prepared for the worst-case scenario. Or you’ll tear at the seams, lad_. But as the road took them further up, to where the sky filled once more with a constant roar, and Mycroft’s men waved them forth into a cleared entrance... Lestrade’s heart clamped shut.

Refusing the loss, then and later, when he would turn to where Mycroft stood, hawk-nosed, silhouetted against the black rocks, and declare –

  
  
\------------------------------

  
  
"How. How did he take it?"  
  
John Watson was crying. And that, Lestrade thought, was one scary sight. The tears did not coarsen John’s voice, did not turn it all wet and husky, or twist his features into a putty. No, the tears slid down John’s reddened cheeks, his neck sinews, inside his rumpled shirt collar, and they left a warzone in their trail. Showing John's pure, undistilled rage. Not at Sherlock (not yet, and never a threat to Sherlock, or Lestrade would have put his foot down on the nest-building from day one), but at life, which had left John once again on the roadside of battle.  
  
Mrs Hudson was present, so Lestrade didn’t offer a hug or a hankie. But he stretched his arm across the kitchen table and placed his fist, his  _I don’t believe_ , close to John’s  _I don’t accept_. They knew the fists for what they were. Knew the strong sign they made, even as John raised his, touching Greg’s knuckles in brief acknowledgement, before he uncurled it to wipe his face.  
  
"Oh, he said a few bruised twigs and a ledge halfway up the rock face weren’t enough data. Not when CCTV had caught two men breaking in and no one legging it out. And DNA hardly stood a chance after the midday rain. Then Bern was on the radio, blabbing about a corpse down below. So yeah, Mycroft was all reality principle. But..."  
  
"Was he angling his head right or left?" Mrs Hudson suddenly asked, pouring lemongrass comfort.   
  
"Left," Lestrade said after giving it some thought.  
  
"Oh, then he was bluffing. Sherlock does it every time I ask after my meat thermometer. And surely, leaving his coat behind would be a Bond One-Liner?"  
  
"A sign he’d defeated Moriarty," John translated for Lestrade. Mrs Hudson, lemoned and grassed up, nodded eagerly.

"Yes! A way of saying ‘I need another cover now’. Or ‘On a cloak and dagger operation’, only he didn’t have a dagger to leave along, my clever boy."  
  
"Well, I wish he hadn’t. It was bloody icy up there, he’ll be catching his death." All three flinched. "God. Sorry. Anyway, there was no saying when he’d taken it off or why. And Mycroft clearly wanted me out from under his feet, whether he thought his brother dead or alive." Lestrade smiled tightly. "So I gave him just that."  
  
\---------------------------  
  
"Lestrade, you can’t  _stay_  here!"

Mycroft’s voice was showing perceptible cracks. Lestrade shrugged and remained seated, cigarette hanging from his lips, legs hanging into the void.

"He’s gone, they’re both gone, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. And it’s raining again. This ledge will be a liability in under five minutes. Come down now."  
  
"Nah." He could feel the chasm under his feet, as immaterial and compelling as his own certainty that Sherlock was alive. That his child hadn’t come here – damn all the loops and circles – to die, not after they’d made so much headway together and known each other for so little time. Not he, not Sherlock. Not his strange, lambent, secret, unique son.  
  
"Oh, for –  _Lestrade_!" The ledge was really a one-man prop, too narrow for Mycroft’s Praetorian guard to round up and haul him off as a body. To Mycroft’s credit, the man hadn’t even opened his umbrella. Lestrade drew Sherlock’s coat tighter around him and over his head, against the first wet lashes.  
  
"What do you want?" Mycroft was hoarse.  
  
Lestrade made a quick calculation. "Three weeks. All of your means."  
  
"If I say yes, will you, for the love of God, get down here?"  
  
Lestrade gave a polite little wave relegating the answer to the more efficient speaker. "Yes," Mycroft rasped after five more seconds, and Lestrade, during the slow, excruciating process of standing on his feet on the narrow ledge, knew that this would prove one of two. Either a free voucher to Hell, or the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Just now he was too drained to place a bet.  
  
\---------------------  
  
"Knowing Mycroft, there must have been provisos."  
  
"Oh, yes. Quite the natter we had over them. Nah, not really, they boiled down to three. Number one was that I let him deal with you and Mrs H."  
  
John, still red-and-puffy-eyed, broke into his usual giggle. "And we can guess how well that went. Thanks, Greg."  
  
"Don’t. I could still be wrong, you know. Just – it didn’t sit right with me, not telling you how things stood. I mean..."  
  
"Hush, dear. Of course you did the right thing. We’ll just have to be Heretics United, won’t we? Like the Mormons, only with less wives and whiskers." Mrs Hudson patted his sleeve. "Because I don't believe it either. Number two, now - are we allowed to know about that?"  
  
"Sure. Me taking a three-week leave, so he could vet my team in case Moriarty's threats were serious. I said three days, Sal in the loop, and to call me every four hours  _sharp_."  
  
"That’s the way to treat ’em, dear. The rate you’re going, you’ll have him down on his knees popping the question next. Unless you’d rather skip the question?"  
  
"Mrs Hudson!" God, that woman was worth  _his_  weight in gold. John almost looked his old self.  
  
"Well, he hasn’t called yet." Greg checked his watch. "I’d better go home and pack if I wanna keep my side of the bargain. Officially, Sherlock is on Her Majesty’s service, somewhere east of Vladivostock. Will you two be all right?"  
  
This time, it was John’s cardiganed arm round Mrs Hudson’s shoulders, clasping her safe and warm. "Fine as rain. Take care of yourself, Greg."  
  
Mrs Hudson tiptoed up to him as he went for the door. "You must allow an old woman her venial sin, dear. Number three?"  
  
"Ah." Lestrade paused, his lips twitching. "Come, you know Mycroft as well as I do. Number Three was me not telling another living soul about Sherlock."  
  
He looked at her and she looked at him, shrewd in their mutual understanding.  
  
"Then say hello to her from me," Martha Hudson whispered, and closed the door so softly behind him that the noise felt like a viaticum.

[A/N: the initial crisis in Mycroft's day was inspired by [this 2010 interview ](http://www.gofishing.co.uk/Angling-Times/Section/News--Catches/General-News/March-2010/David-Cameron-interview-with-Angling-Times/)of David Cameron. Needless to say, Mr Cameron is most careful in his own fishing.]


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, sorry about the long delay in updating this (for various reasons, but I'll spare you the Series of Unfortunate Events that ended in my laptop going for a burton with half the chapter aboard, unsaved...). Only one chapter/epilogue to go now, and I'm writing it as I type. Well, almost.
> 
> More importantly, all my thanks go to my beta, Grassle, for her patience, help and generosity, especially when speed-betaing 2K words on a very busy day.

When he could, Lestrade liked to take a green bus from Taunton.

No longer the lusty, first-bite-at-the-apple colour of his own green years, and not a double-decker since many years, but still green enough to do the trick and bump him down memory lane. Somerset had a way with him, of never letting him feel quite the stranger on his (too rare, okay, crappily spaced out) visits, though Lestrade was a city slicker now. And yet, every time he boarded the leaf-green Crosville and sat by a window, all it took was the cool press of glass to the tip of his nose and he was. Again. Was five years old, feet bobbing in the air, soaring over the tops of hedges and cider-apple trees and the brilliant slash of sea behind it all, full of a child’s gladness at being airborne in his own small world.

_Once I rose above the noise and confusion_

Until London had proved the best, coolest ride of all. Beating even Deanna Noakes, sixteen and oblique-eyed, who had cadged his lap during their final winter term, all the way to school and back at the end of day. Making him feel every jar of the engine with her heart-shaped little butt, every hard suck of wheel on the frozen roads, until his groin was suffocating with sensation and he had to reach back and slap his palm to the window pane, the chill glass a temporary mercy.

“Alright, my lover?” Lestrade’s elderly seat-neighbour was poking him in the ribs, a sharp-fingered Samaritan. “ ’Ee look a bit nappy to me.”

“Sorry. I mean, yeah. No. Ta. It’s been – a long trip.”

“A _ha_. Been gallivantin’, have’ee?” The Samaritan wheezed a benevolent chuckle. “Old’uns, young’uns, that’s all they’re about these days. Gallivantin’ up and down and in and out, if ye take my meaning” – a sharper poke – “until they’re gallivantin’ feet first into the blessed earth. Tell’ee what, mate, let the bloody telly do it for ’ee. Me, I’ve buried three of ’em in my back garden. Arrr. One dackel and three tellies. Takes the juice out of you, gallivantin’. Where ye be going to?”

They were nearing the Watchet road, and as the bus gathered speed, Lestrade’s thighs tautened in reflex, pushing back against the stiff fabric of his seat. He’d been eighteen, nineteen on that road, a bonfire of sulks and spikes, Greggo to his gang (“My friends think I’m dating a _frog_ ” – Deanna) with whom he rode his Magna Honda across any mud-rut guaranteed to leave a shiny dark trail on the road. _His_ mark, _his_ thumbprint, though his thumb was red and swollen from chasing Led Zep and Kansas on his guitar, well into the late hours until they became the very early hours (“Well, the cock crow for me” – Da).

Gallivantin’ came cheaper on a bloke, back in these days. Didn’t involve global travelling, let alone death by wordplay and Moriarty’s version of free-fall style. Lestrade’s hand muscles tightened darkly around his phone. Still no news.

_I set a course for the winds of fortune_

“Ah, there be my stop.”

Staplegrove, Norton Manor, Seven Ash… old names, immovable objects. Lestrade waved the oldster good-bye with his free hand. Then lowered his fingers, tapping them briefly to the glass where he could make out his own face, superimposed to the fluid row of fields and hedges. Here goes, he thought. A tiny absolution for the vulnerable little sod who had turned his back on the land at twenty, dropping school and Deanna, and Da’s tentative offer of a job in the Watchet Coastguard, _his_ old gang. Letting the shiny trail take him all the way to London in a red bomber jacket, only to pull him back six months later, when her postcard came.

Because all trails are two-ended. God knew he’d had it hammered into him by the Met’s finest. And sometimes there’s a corpse at one end, but the real offence is hiding at the other end, Lestrade told the fields savagely, and I don’t give a rat’s arse if he kicked that poisonous little Leprechaun to his death. Just, let him live. Oh god, let him live.

And sometimes it’s just you waking up every morning at one end, wondering what they’re doing home, if they’ve forgiven enough that she’d be here, your Ma, waiting for you at the old stop. Even though you’ve just called them to say “London’s my scene now”. And so it was. For good. Packed with in-yer-face sensations, day in day out. A six-string riff on a loop.

London was all that, only London wasn't just that. London was three-quarter rain, a stolen Magna Honda, a single room in Stepney with a Baptist landlady who disliked him on account of his cross earing and because he brought fish and chips to eat in his room. She'd spat on it once, as he passed her. It was this same landlady who would keep the postcard from him a whole week after it came. A beauty, too, the glam sort that Mr Larch hoarded in his shop for the summer days, when he sold them fifty pee apiece to the grockles. He had turned the card in his hands and looked at Ma's long-legged writing for a long moment before he actually read it. 

_Carry on, my wayward son._

It had been the peak of summer when the card came, and so he’d boarded a green bus that smelt of warm plastic and Dettol. Like this one. Lestrade leant forward and began the same countdown. Three stops to go. The road kept unwinding before him, the dusty life-thread that ran through all the journeys only to bring them together in the end. Because it really came down to the same vigil, the same pulse of waiting. Twenty-nine years after, he was still staring at every preliminary hedge, post box, rough-stoned wall, and there it was again, that hopeful-helpless beat.

Lestrade stood up and grabbed his bag from the rack, deaf to the driver’s warning. He knew exactly when to flex his knees when the bus took that sharp turn to stop at the foot of their street. There was his stop, and there she was. Of course she was. Pushing the strap of her bag high up her shoulder, the way she always did when his bus came into view, so he could have the full measure of her arms.

“That’s my boy!” his Ma said, beaming at him.

Lestrade sent his bag flying down the bus steps and walked straight into her arms. She hugged him and he hugged her back, careless if anyone saw them, the tall white-haired woman and the rugged inspector on leave. Holding her, he felt how the years had chipped at her, tugging her closer down to the country ground she loved wholeheartedly. But they couldn't ruin her straight forehead and nose, totting up in a face that was a bit horsey, yeah, with a horse’s cunningly placid look. He and Da had competed for years to stroke a hand down over it, him to tease her into a fret, Da to soothe her after one.

Eyes closed, he rubbed his cheek fiercely to hers. Muttering “Yeah, that’s what you said” to the white wisps of hair.

“Alright, sunshine? Your bag’s hugging the dust.”

“The first time I came back,” he said, dropping his arms. “Remember? Me standing there with my guts in a twist, not knowing what you’d say, and Mr Dawson at the wheel, taking his own sweet time to turn her about? And you then, smiling. ‘Off on two wheels, back on four,’ you said. ‘That’s my boy!’ ”

She was looking at him, startled, on the verge of asking. But he couldn’t tell her yet. Not with her heart so fragile and the climb before them, he couldn’t say that he knew, that he was sorry, so very sorry, that he hadn’t known then how a child going away left you so terribly orphaned. And because he couldn’t tell her - yet, he took her hand and tucked it under his arm, safe and warm, before they laboured up the street together.

“Looks like _you_ ’ve been remembering,” she laughed. “The road does that to you, eh? Let’s get you home, sunshine. See if you remember how to make a Lestrade cuppa.”

\---------------------

The Lestrade cuppa, a time-honoured custom, was a simple if rewarding operation.

First, you chose a teapot out of a grand total of two, known respectively to the family as “the Half Pint” and “the Cookie Booster”. The Half Pint was a ’umble, tea-for-two little fellow; the Cookie Booster, a buffer number, held enough cuppas to keep Ma’s Gardening Club well-watered on Tuesdays and justify its name. Year after year, the Half Pint and the Cookie Booster had gone through more untimely deaths and regenerations than Doctor Who, often at a younger Greg’s hands, but their names had stayed through thick and thin - be it china, glass, steel, or Ma’s favourite “dotty” pottery.

“Good thing I bought us some HobNobs,” Ma said. “You never gave me a proper warning, love. Very poor form for a senior police officer, well, not that I’m not glad to see you any time. But I thought you’d have in mind to wait after Sunday, what with the crowd there'll be at church. Christmas was bad enough, with you coming right after that serial murder case. Remember the woman who spotted you from _Panorama_ and jumped the Communion queue to stalk you? Poor Father Ellis nearly dropped the Cup. Said he was _so_ casting you in next year’s Nativity Play, handcuffing Herod to a camel or something, so he could sell extra tickets and buy himself a new cassock .”

Once you had settled on a pot, your next task was to fill the teakettle with the right amount of water. This was a bit trickier than your average check-the-line reflex, mostly because Ma, who walked her own thin line between tradition and modernity, hated electric kettles. The first headmistress in the county who bought an IBM and manned it herself, Lestrade thought proudly, and the most stubborn when it came to boiled water.

“…twelve, thirteen, fourteen. What’s so special about Sunday?”

The trick was to hold the kettle under the water tap and count aloud. Eight for the Half Pint, fourteen for the Booster, Ma’s rule because she favoured scientific precision. Greg’s Nan, who did not care for numbers, had put her trust in the Lord’s Prayer (to Greg’s unspeakable shame when his gang crashed the house at tea-time). Nan’s mother, born and raised in Bude, had used the old Cornish charm:

_White sheep, black sheep, walking in the rye_

_White sheep, black sheep, come again bye-bye_.

He was gazing so hard at the kettle, his mind stealing obsessively back to a Swiss watershed and the black sheep that had been found in a pool, reaping the wages of his original sin, that he missed her silence.

The wind gusted out of the back window, straight from the garden, shutting the cupboard door on a mild boom. Lestrade started.

“Greg.” His mother’s voice was mild too, but firm. “Anything you need to tell me?”

“I…”

But the kettle struck in with its banshee wail, as the pressure drove the steam through the whistle, and he groped for the cream. Once upon a time, a Lestrade cuppa must have shattered under the hot water, giving birth to a tradition that you had to spoon a dollop of cream at the bottom of it. Lestrade, a traditionalist at home, fetched the cream and warmed the pot, relishing its round, solid presence. He thought back to Mrs Hudson’s mad tea parties; to Sherlock’s exhausted face the first time he’d waken up on Lestrade’s long-suffering sofa and been handed a mug of coffee, black, two sugars for comfort; he thought of a yellow teapot among a trail of bread crumbs the day he'd told Sherlock that he’d be a father to him, no matter what.

It felt as if all the cuppas were fitting into one another across the long stretch of time and space, their warmth destined not to evaporate. And how simply, marvelously fitting that, just when he tipped the pot after a few minutes and watched the white cream cloud up in the tea, his phone should ping the last connection, loud in the quiet kitchen.

“Alive,” was Mycroft’s overture, though he immediately spoiled the effect by adding “and if that’s a vintage Le Creuset purple kettle behind you, _do_ tell your mother I can make her a handsome offer.”

\---------------------------

"According to my coiffeur, we lose eighty a day once our twenties have lost sight of us." Mycroft Holmes could be heard heaving the sigh of the truly stoic. "In that respect, I’m afraid even Sherlock ranks as an average male. And thus we come full DNA circle, or should I say helix, my dear Greg. But yes, alive and well." 

Lestrade’s throat was still trying to kick-start a breath. "… _Where_?" 

He listened as Mycroft spun his tale of woe. Apparently, the hair had been found in a cheap hotel room in Interlaken, booked by a tall, dark and coatless Mr Sigerson on the night following Sherlock’s disappearance. Interestingly, Mr Sigerson had signed his name on another hotel register the very next evening, only a few streets away from the previous. In both cases the man had spoken perfect Swiss German, checked in very late and offered to pay up-front. The hotel manager had been either too sleepy or too unscrupulous to ask for ID.

 

On the third night, Mr Sigerson had vanished again.

 

"So he made it easy to be tracked at first." Lestrade was reaching his old room as he spoke, his hand mechanically rattling the door knob, always a bit loose. "Which makes fuck-all sense, unless he felt secure enough to do it. Or wanted to leave a sign? Some sorta clue for you, or John, or me –"

 

"For you, Greg. Definitely for you." Mycroft sighed again. "Though I won't hold it against you if you miss it. Being Sherlock, he’s managed to twist his clue out of all proportions and make a Swiss pretzel out of it. Sigerson, Greg. Think. _Siger’s son_."

 

"I’ve been through all kinds of hell about him," Lestrade said, glaring at a patch of wall where, once upon a long-ago, there had been a monster poster of Siouxsie Sioux. "I’ve ditched my team, gone airsick, snogged a rock face with my arse facing the Great Nothing. And all he can think of is my smoking habit? No, wait." He could foretell another sigh coming. "’s all right. I’ll get it in time."

 

"I can explain –"

 

"Don’t bother." He didn't care how rude he sounded. If his son had left him a sign, had left _him_ a sign, there was no way on earth he'd let anyone else unwrap his gift. Not while he sat there in a daze of wondering, heartbeating, thanksgiving. In fact, it took a few seconds before he remembered who was waiting on the active end of the call, sharing his trail with him. A trail. A two-ended trail.

"Did you get Moran?"

The answer came with another  _ping_. An attached photograph, which, when he opened the file, showed a shabby placard from some backpocket or other in Soho. An advertisement for the ‘Bagatelle Club’ and its celebrated retro singer, Madame Bastienne. Lestrade looked at a familiar face, last seen in a different hairstyle and hair colour, plunging a hairpin into a young man's heart, and whistled under his breath. He knew better than to ask Mycroft about means or opportunity, opting instead for a sober "Fast work. He in your custody, then?"

 

"In-deed. MI6 was very grateful for your lead, Greg. One of the deadliest assassins in the world today, though rather fetching in a peek-a-boo bang."

 

"So he wasn’t with Moriarty?"

 

"If he was, he beelined back to England."

 

"But then, Sherlock is safe!" Lestrade jumped to his feet, nearly tripping over his bag. Surely, all was well now? All would be well, and all manner of things? Why the heck was Mycroft being so quiet? "Because, if Moriarty’s dead and Moran’s been caught, there's no longer any – unless he doesn’t know it yet?"

 

"Oh, I'm certain that he knows. And is currently in England, fuming incognito like a chimney-stack because we pulled the rug from under his feet. He’s Sherlock, Greg. Tell me, how well do you know your Bible?"

 

"Well enough." And he’d grown familiar enough with Mycroft’s conversationary U-turns that he could take this one in his stride. "Are we talking prodigal sons or say-one-word-and-my-stress-levels-will-be-cured?"

 

"The first. If I know my brother at all, Greg, he is too stubborn, too shamed to come back with his hands empty. The prodigal son may have kept an eye on the filthy hogs, but Sherlock…"

 

"… won’t be happy before he’s hamstrung them and roasted them over a spit. Cheers."

 

"Don’t be too hard on him, Greg. It’s…complicated. Our father –"

 

"I know, Mycroft. You don’t have to say. Only, if he’s after the whole herd, that could take –"

 

"If my assistant’s calculations are correct" - Mycroft's tones were glum - "the answer's up to three years."

 

" _Three years?!_ "

 

"Well, taking into account the Moriartists’ extended activities in the Eastern…"

 

"Mycroft, you gotta stop him." The frantic pacing was doing nothing to abate Lestrade's sense of outrage. Three years, for Christ's sake! What was he supposed to do in the meantime? Take a stand with his arms crossed? Fat chance. Light a candle to St Rita? Adopt young Dimmock as a temp? _Sherlock!_

 

"If you can tell me _how_ to do it, I’ll stop him," came the tetchy answer. "Meanwhile, your team is clean. All of it. You never were in danger, Greg, that was only Moriarty’s bluff. Let us pray that Sherlock finds out before he heads for Tibet on a snow-goose chase."

 

"We’ll find how. _I_ ’ll find how, if I have to bribe the Dalai Lama into locking him in a convent. Sweet Christ on a Honda. Still, he’s alive. Good enough to go with, I say. More than. Can you check if that Moran had a Moran of his own?"

 

"Probably called Mr Mortgage, or Morsbrod, or something equally untasty. Consider it done. Meanwhile –"

 

" – keep calm, carry on and try not to slap him?"

 

"I was going to say ‘take a leaf out of the calendar and remain hopeful’, but I think I like your version better."

 

That last sentence made no sense at all, but Lestrade let it pass; he was too busy thinking up his next step.

 

\-------------------------------------------

 

 _Definitely alive. Possibly in England. In a fuckton of trouble if he waits three_ _years before gallivantin’ home. GL._

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Ma’s garden was a child’s book picture. And, like any child’s picture, it was as chaotic as friendly.

There was a round bed of sunflowers and tomatoes at one end, a round bed of veronica, sage and strawberries in the middle, and nothing at the other end, which had been left a wasteland of grass and beehives. Some of the ladies in Ma’s gardening club had been very forceful when commenting upon this lack of pattern, which Ma usually countered with a tart, "It’s a garden, not a prayer rug."

 

Lestrade paused on the kitchen threshold to watch her. She was kneeling before the sunflower-and-tomato bed, fork in hand.

 

"I wish you’d hire someone to do the rough stuff." Two-parts tease, one-part truth – their home routine. "Can’t be good for your heart."

 

"Heart is as heart does." Ma turned back, eyeing him carefully under her sunhat. "I’m just tinkering, Greg. And Mr Parry’s nephew has agreed to come over and lend a hand with the roots. Nice lad he is, just back from the army."

 

"Can’t Mr Parry give a hand of his own?"

 

"I’m not letting him into this garden, hand or foot." Ma’s tones had become indignant. "Silly old fool. He doesn’t believe in worm gardening."

 

So it was worms, now. Lestrade made a careful mental note. Last year it had been mirrors – she had read that they brought in more light once hanged on a garden wall, and made him collect every shard and broken piece in their street. He’d come back with his two hands bandaged and spent his first week at work hiding from Gregson, who called him the Sainted Greg and asked loudly after his stigmata. Worms, if he was very, very lucky, would prove less lethal.

 

"Of course, these idiots at the Club have elected him president _again_ ," Ma grumbled to the tomatoes. "A man who thinks sage will grow where a woman gardens in trousers! Tchah! Let’s not talk of Parry. Have you made up your mind to tell me?"

 

"What?" The gleam in her eyes had turned soft-sharp, nothing to do with the sun now, or the infamous Parry.

 

"Greg. _Really_. You call yesterday to say you’re coming, and when you’re here, you can’t even remember that Sunday is Easter Sunday. And we’re two for tea, as we’ve been for a while now, but there you go and choose the Cookie Booster. I’ve still got the use of my eyes, laddie. Of course you have something on your mind. Or...someone." The blue gleam was laser-like with meaning.

 

"Well…" But she looked tired, pushing her forearm up her sweating brow, and he temporised. "Tell you what. You lemme take you on a picnic tomorrow, and I’ll tell you all about it."

 

She was still eyeing him.

 

"Is there a problem, Greg?"

 

"Bit of. But the right sort. And the best of news. Cop's honour."

 

At last she turned her head away and rose step by cautious step from the ground, taking off her gloves. "Aye. I’ll bake us a batch of scones, then. You were always one to celebrate with scones. Or pasties."

 

Once again he felt the heartbeating, thanksgiving _woosh_ in his veins. He took two steps in her direction and looped an arm about her, oblivious to her, "Greg, I’m all dirten!".

 

"I’ll take the scones and the pasties," he told her. "And the doughboys – the dumplings. Let’s make it a picnic to end all picnics!"

 

"What, all three of them?"

 

"Yeah," he said, and laughed until the tears came to his eyes and he had to let go of her blurred form. A memory struck him fondly and he couldn’t help adding, "It’s a three-batch problem. By the way, Ma, do we have a German dictionary in the house? I have a little puzzle to look up."

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All good journeys must come to an end. Or a beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my thanks to Grassle, my beta, for her unending patience.

_Oh god. I mean. You know. Holy molly and all that. I mean, god. Thank god. JW_

 

_Oh, goody! Martha_

 

_I really mean, fuck. JW_

 

_Dear John is probably wording this much better than I could! Martha_

 

_Bet he forgot the milk, too, the great pilchard. So much for sodding off to Switzerland. JW_

 

_Good for you, sir! Sally_

 

_Wait. What do you mean, three years? JW_

 

_We’re not funding international cab expenses for three years, mind. Sally_

 

_Marie T. just popped in. Hoorraying with a lavender mojito! Martha_

 

_I’m not waiting three years for him! Abso-fucking-ly not. JW_

 

_At a stretch, and as a favour to you, sir, we’ll all pitch in and buy him a spacehopper. Sally_

 

_Don’t you worry, dear. I made her swear on Mary Berry. Shhhh. Martha_

 

_Not a sodding sailor’s wife, me. JW_

 

_I’ll git maryed. To smeone. Tellim. TellimImeanit. JW_

 

_I mean! JW_

 

_Bible not much good, as dear Marie’s a Zoroastrian at heart. But she believes in Sherlock Holmes and Victoria sponge – and no soggy bottom for either!!! Martha_

 

_Greg, mate. Sorry for being a dick. Had a lavender too many, obviously. JW_

 

_Look. Whatever he’s done, whatever trouble he’s making? He’ll make it through. JW_

 

_You and I know he will. JW_

 

_Even if it feels like three years already. JW_

 

_...Fuck. I'm sounding like a sailor’s wife, right? JW_

 

\-----------------------------------

 

Brilliant, beautiful Saturday was kids’ day out at Doniford Bay. Twenty families craddled between sea and sky, on the beachgrass that had been trodden by Celtic sheepskin and Saxon leather and Roman nail-studded sandals long before the age of Clarkes and Crocs.

 

All in season, Lestrade thought, ducking as a red frisbee zoomed within an inch of his skull. He watched a flight of gulls cross throatily to another latitude and wondered if they were the same white dots he’d once held under his merciless fire, back when crimefighting was all play and no work, and his biggest case record the taking down of fifty Imperial Stormtroopers between tea and jam.

 

Mouth and fingers duly wiped, he stole a glance at Ma still gathering the scraps of what had been a glorious picnic indeed, before turning back to his pocket German-to-English dictionary. So far he’d drawn a blank with his Sigers. Taken a bold guess and eliminating the probable _Sieger_ , aka _winner, victor, champ, conquering hero (hail the)._ Yeah, except nah. Lestrade had his penny'orth of pride, same as any vintage cop, but the words just didn’t...pack a meaning. Raise a pang. Didn’t sound _family_ , a word you’d tip into your old man’s ear with  a wink and a smirk, to make him huff. To make him glad.

 

He laid down the squat little book and flumped onto the tartan blanket, one arm pillowing his neck. Either side of him the dune was striking a green distance and he could hear the children’s cries in every direction, nipping at the bright perpendicular sky. _Getting there, sunshine._ The book was under his palm, grounding him to his quest. _Give us half a mo’._

 

A word clue. Well, his old man had been pretty good at them. The _Times'_ crossword champion twice over, as he'd once told Sherlock, and one helluva punster to boot. Learnt from the best, Greg had. The suck-and-give of the waves down below was getting louder, and he let them pull at his mind, let himself turn in the grip of the tide and drift away until the light pressing against his eyelids had turned a more parchment white. Now he was sitting again at the kitchen table, next to Da's hunched back as he rested his elbows on the tabletop after a long day's shift. There were other shapes in the kitchen, going in shadowy, tiny fingerbrushing motions. The garden bats, their rounds caught by the ceiling lamp and flashed back on the kitchen wall, again and again, like the revolving stars in a kid's nightlight.

 

Strange, how their evening rite was coming back to him, down to the faint crinkle at his ear. The sound made by the crisp fresh sheet of newspaper when Da spread it out for them, first thing after supper, flattening it on the tablecloth with the heel of his hand. And then the game was on, him reading the clues and Da's hand zooming over the grid. Sometimes he'd ticked all the little boxes into brilliance before Greg's bath was run upstairs. Sometimes it took longer. _Thing is_ , Da said, clapping his shoulder against the loud squeaks of the bats, _your clue’s a bit of a mix-up. Bit wayward, eh?_ _Hiding out, like he doesn't care to be found. As if you and I didn't know better. See, lad? Little mix-up, that's all. Nothing a dad can’t sort out._

 

Lestrade awoke with a jolt to the screeching gulls and the radiant afternoon. A mix-up – Christ, yes! Or _anagram_ , Da would say, the oldest, smoothest trick in the crossword trade. He grabbed the book, ripping at the too-thin pages in his hurry to check, to find. In German, because Sherlock had been in shock for real, that day, must have been after surviving the fall, his mind switching back to his childhood lingo... and...yes! There it was, top of the page, standing out black on white. The last joke he’d shared with his son. Their last bond, before the night had gone and swallowed Sherlock. _Old man, litt. grey-haired man, man of wisdom and experience_. Lestrade's fingers touched the word lightly, a caress to an absent cheek.

 

 _Greis_. Siger. Sigerson.

 

He lifted his face to a pair of blue eyes, lined from the weight and wisdom of living, but still sharp, still attentive. "I’m a father," he said.

 

Ma nodded. She was reserving judgement, Lestrade saw, but he also saw the humorous tilt in her face muscles.

 

"You’re giving family a go, then. Good for you. Of course, your da would say it’s a bit late in the day – or no, you know how he was, more like ‘couldn’t lay your truncheon to rest, eh, officer,’ but – "

 

"Ma!" Lestrade turned to frown the giggling teen and teenette on the next blanket into soberness. Perhaps Doniford Bay hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

 

" – she looks like she’s got a head on her shoulders, fine head of hair too, and if she’s got the heart that goes with it, she’ll be my girl and welcome. Are you two planning to marry? I’ll fetch your Nan’s garnet ring, should go nicely with her colouring."

 

 _What_? Oh god, she couldn’t possibly think... and now the dapper old gent walking his Labrador in a navy cardy with epaulettes – yeah, the dog too – was stopping to hear his answer.

 

"I’m not marrying Donovan!" His fierce whisper would have been more successful if half the bay hadn’t gone on a lull right then. "Jesus, Ma! I’m not marrying anyone _._ It’s not like there's a woman involved."

 

" _Really_?" Oh, he knew that turn-of-the-tide darkening of her eyes; knew the way they flicked to a harsher blue, from cornflower to Watchet. _Watch it_ , Detective Inspector Lestrade cautioned himself.

 

"They say it takes two sides to make a war," Ma rued loudly to the cliff. "Last time I checked, the same went for babies."

 

"Ma..." Lestrade shook his head helplessly as the old salt took a step forward, tugging on the leash and readying himself to soothe the widow in distress. "There’s no woman because it all happened more than twenty years ago and she’s _dead_ and _buried_." This, he saw, had the merit of diminishing his audience appeal. Grabbing his chance, Lestrade crossed himself dramatically. The teens backed out to the fringes of their plaid, and the Labrador uttered a dismayed woof. Lestrade lowered his voice again. "My son’s all grown-up, Ma" – though there were those that would dispute the fact – "and his name’s Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes."

 

He gave the bay a quick once over, but it had taken up its Saturday buzz with renewed indifference. Unlike their Saxon ancestors, John, Sherlock & Blogs still had to take over Somerset.

 

Ma, on the other hand, was staring at him open-mouthed.

 

"Surely not _your_ Sherlock Holmes?"

 

"Ma, really. It's not like they come in dozens."

 

"That very odd, very _rude_ young man who solves cases for you? Martha’s tenant? The one with, what was it again, ‘a size eighteen ego squeezed into a size twelve shirt'?"

 

"Ma, what did I say about reading the _Daily Mail_?"

 

"But, Greg..." There would be no stopping her now she'd found her track. Reminded him of someone, that. "Oh, sweetheart. I know how it is. Turned fifty before you did, and don't I know what pits and aches it digs into you, longings you didn't know you had in you. I wish that marriage of yours – but let's not go into that. But, son, you have to face up to reality. That man just can’t be one of us, he’s...he’s all cucumber and IQ!"

 

As definitions went, Lestrade thought, he vastly preferred hers to the  _Daily Mail's_.

 

"We’ve had every test under the sun," came his simple answer. "I can produce a chit from the British government if that's what it takes to convince you. He’s my boy, Ma. And, yeah, he's everything you say. Rude. One-man demolition site. The only witness in courtroom history who got the coroner to _bite_ him so he could use the tooth marks to prove a case. Yeah. But he’s so much more, is Sherlock. You have no idea. He’s fine and brave and smart and fast, and... he’s such a lad, Ma." He paused, his voice catching, and gulped in the salty air to steady himself.

 

"It’s not comfy, being there for him. Half the time, it takes the bejesus out of me. But it’s a blessing too. All the time. _He_ ’s a blessing."

 

The sky was changing over their heads, the white clouds gathering from the west, pitching the light into blunter, eel-coloured tones. She was lost in her thoughts. After a while, she looked up and spoke, the old home voice as steady as before.

 

"Does he run truant?"

 

"A lot." Lestrade swallowed and smiled.

 

"Married to his work?"

 

"That’s one below...Yeah. He is. Only, I think there’s someone on the side now."

 

"And you say he’s a good man?"

 

The cliff before him turned to a foggy sight. They weren’t alone, but they might as well have been when he ran a hand down the dear horsey face. "The very best."

 

"Then he’s enough of a Lestrade for me." Ma nodded once again to herself, briskly, before starting on her usual slow-mo routine of getting up. "When do I get to meet this newfound child?"

 

"Ah." Lestrade, also rising, felt his knees go numb under him and had to hunker again on the plaid. "That’s just it. I – I’ve lost him."

 

A sharp turn of the head. But what she saw must have told her that he wasn’t punning, wasn't playing games; wasn't pulling a Lestrade on her – her words every time Da and he ganged up to tease her. The next thing he knew, it was she pulling him up, never losing her grip on his elbows until they were facing each other on the grass, the west wind buffeting them closer. They made a brittle axis together: aging bones, hearts under arrest, white and grey wisps of hair ridiculously spiked up in the air. But the old alliance was there, the have-and-hold between them. Bit ragged at the seams, worn by the losses that had come and gone - his divorce, Da's passing, the empty places in a house where only one lived now - but still here. Palpable like her hand, soft-worn and warm on his cheek, as she said,

 

"All right, love. Gimme."

\-----------------------------

 

 On Sunday, he let Ma take him to church and ensconce them in her favourite pew, close enough to the altar that she could keep a close watch on the flower arrangement. Why, Lestrade wasn’t entirely sure – perhaps in case the hydrangeas were taken in a faint mid-sermon and had to be carried out. They came from Mr Parry’s garden, he suspected, and hadn’t been blessed with worm vim.

 

The weather was holding, the daylight fountaining all around them from the stained glass windows, dazzling Lestrade’s eyes and distracting his mind. Prayer didn’t come easy to him, never had. Not a Sunday School copper, he, and the past twenty years had taken some of that wind, _spiritus_ , out of his sails. His pleas to God came and went much in the manner of his son’s texts to him – all shortcuts, all about bundling facts, sequence and meaning into a curt flash and beep. _God help me_ , his prayers went, usually followed by _Sherlock, Anderson. Ta_ , or _Gregson. Into temptation. HELP_ , or, in his more panicked hours, _God_ or _Please_ on a suffocating loop.

 

 _Sherlock_ , he tried, pressing his face into the cup of his hands. He would have been surprised to learn that four centuries earlier, a famous mystic had advised one-word prayers as the shortest way to God’s heart. Lestrade paused and tried again. _Sherlock_ …

 

 

"And here, dearly beloved, is the answer!"

Lestrade winced, tossed out of his loop by Father Ellis’s baritone. He peeped between his fingers, only to see the stocky Padre bunch up his alb, slip a hand into his trousers pocket and wave...an iPad tablet in front of his audience? Who, knowing their shepherd well, were answering with a shy but hearty  _Aaaah_. You never knew with Father Ellis, who liked to think of himself as a Roman Cathogeek and once, famously, had the Youth Group rewrite the Annunciation as a series of tweets from the Holy Dove. So far, the diocese top brass had indulged him. But might draw the a line at Nokia-sponsored sermons.

 

"Too often, we think of ourselves as yesterday's men and women," Father Ellis boomed on. "A bunch of has-beens, our message old news to the new media, Corpus Christi of no import to the corporate world. O we of little faith! Has anyone here checked up on Google this morning? Really? Not even the weather? Oh, well. Switch on your phones, then, dear brothers and sisters, and prepare for a heartwarming sight."

 

There was a sound of shuffling and mumbling, then a medley of rings as the congregation followed suit. Ma burrowed into her raffia-woven bag and brought out a BlackBerry smartphone, so new and shiny that Lestrade had to narrow his eyes at her.

 

"So that’s why we had instant cocoa mix this morning?" he whispered, flicking his own decent-enough-IQ Sony open.

 

"I’ve no idea what you mean." But Ma had the decency to blush a little. "It’s Easter Sunday. We always have milk chocolate on Easter Sunday."

 

"And there I was, thinking the price of a virtuous kettle was far above rubies. Or pixels." Lestrade grinned back at her schoolmarm frown. "It’s a fair deal, Ma. Now switch it on and lemme see what I get out of it. Because I think I know exactly... _Jesus Christ, will you look at that!_ "

 

"Greg." But her reproachful "Not in church!" was drowned under the humming and buzzing that were quickly taking over the shuffling and mumbling as everyone gaped at today’s Google page. Gaped at the faint, almost translucid group of letters, hovering inside the search bar like a watermark, and the new Google doodle.

Trust Mycroft to put his grain of salt in the picture, Lestrade thought, and do so with minimal effort. Merely by inserting a demure little cross between the second and third letter, leaving the tiniest gap before the fourth and fifth, and turning the final _e_ into a busy bee that took off regularly to flit about the clever **“GO †O GL”** and its background landscape, all green hills and red cider apples, with a brilliant slash of blue which Father Ellis was now saying could only be Lake Tiberias.

 

"A call to all disciples of the GOOD LORD to go and join Him, now He is risen, and live in hope! For we know where to find Him, oh yes we do, and..."

 

"Greg." Ma sounded hopeful indeed, her lips twitching in amusement. "Young man, is this any of your doing?"

 

"You said to signal back, right?" Lestrade whispered back, his grin wider and dafter every second he stared at the screen. "Told me to tell him we’re good, he can come back any time, his dad will be there and waiting with open arms. No matter what or who he catches me first. Like the old story. Well, there you go."

 

He looked down again at the search bar and its pale shimmering message, chuckling to himself even as Father Ellis called for everyone to peal their ringtones high in the air in praise of the Lord. _You know where to find me._ Yeah, that should do the trick, the wink. The prayer. That should say it all.

 

\-------------------------------------------------

 

 

The grin wouldn’t leave him alone that day. It was there when he sat before Ma’s lunch of roast lamb with garden herbs and garden honey, and it was still there after the last dish had been washed and dried, and he watched her climb the stairs to her afternoon nap.

 

Feeling too restless to stay indoors, Lestrade grabbed his coat and went out for a walk. The childhood sights took him in again as he wandered from street to street, pushing his collar up against the nippy breeze. And yet there was a new impatience in him, a shift of mood that kept his feet on the move and made the past a more slippery handrail than two days before, when he’d clung to a green bus and let himself be enveloped with nostalgia. He had to stop to greet a man in a windcheater, with a rugged face. The man had once been one of Greggo’s Gang, Teddy perhaps (unless it was Mickey), and Greg punched his arm genially when Mickey (or it could have been Jo-Jo) said he’d just made it to senior fucking manager, yes sir, take the job and keep the change.

 

"Me? I’m a family man, pal," he countered proudly, upgrading the grin to a senior-to-senior wise nod. They’d all managed, give or take. And they’d all turned aging men in the process, though he felt it as a brave thing now, a proud thing, not to be hushed or denied, same as their silvering hair. They stood a minute more in the wind, trading clipped news and good wishes, before they waved each other on their parting ways.

 

Lestrade took the left turn that led to the lane along the graveyard wall and paused for a furtive smoke, turning his back on the graves and letting the first hard buzz of tobacco knock him into a peaceful haze. _I’ll take him here someday_ , he thought, looking at the sun-warmed wall and remembering the old tale, that it had been raised to keep out the thieves who stole in at night to nick bodies for the local anatomist. _He’ll like it. And the bees, there’s always the bees. And then_...

 

And _And then_ became a game of faith, a loose tale that he told himself stubbornly, adding the worms to the bees, and the interesting sea-kelp, and the best view of Orion from Ma’s sunflower bed, and the butcher’s little jackapoo, who could only enter his kennel by walking backwards. Before he knew, _And then_ had carried him back to Ma’s gate, his heart still swirled by hope and nicotine. There were muffled, steady sounds coming from the back garden, and he turned the corner of the house, ready to give her a hand before his train claimed him.

 

But the figure squatting on his hams and digging at the wild grass with a sharp, exact swing of arm and shoulder, wasn’t Ma. Lestrade glanced at the close-cropped yellow hair and the profile ear sticking out from under an old straw hat. Oh yes. Mr Parry’s nephew, the Army lad with the Army buzzcut, who came to help with the rough end of gardening.

 

"Hey." He extended one arm with his thumb up, wondering if youth-friendly salutations had changed much since his time. Of course, the effect wasn’t quite the same when he wasn’t riding a Honda. "Nice sun we’re having."

 

"Arrh."

 

"Bit cloudy at the seams. But that would be a plus in your line of trade, eh?"

 

"Arrh." The lad laid the gardening fork down and bent his knees and shoulders forward, taking hold of a clump of dandelions.

 

Lestrade dropped his jacket on the grass and sat down. The bee-hives were casting their shadows on the grass, but to his eyes they merely added patches of a deeper, fresher green. "Say, you wanna hear something funny?"

 

This time, the lad grunted. Not that there was much difference.

 

Lestrade smiled, giving him a break. He could smell something warm and buttery coming from the kitchen oven, where Ma must be fixing him some sort of home-made takeaway. He waited until the slim shoulders were once more bent over the soil and spoke.

"They used to say it went round and round the Earth, like a yellow Pac-Man. Yeah. You’d think we know better in this day and age, but I dunno. No, I’m not so sure. Because what I know is – well, it’s not the scientific stuff. Haven’t got the brains for that. It's the other stuff, the stuff that comes from getting your arse up for work, first thing in the morning, and knowing it's out here. The sun, I mean."

 

He took a breath and looked at the still figure. "And it stays with you, the knowledge, even when it’s still dark when you get out to get your car. You could be thinking, so it came yesterday, and the day before, but how can I sodding tell it’s gonna be here today? Bang out there, between the cuppa and the car keys? But you don’t. And there he is. And you should be so damn proud and happy not because he’s a star, not because he blitzes into your scene and makes you see things you couldn’t possibly see without him, but just because. There he is."

 

The figure sighed, the figure turned. Lestrade leant forward and flicked the ridiculous hat, which he now remembered as his Nan’s Sunday best, off Sherlock’s head. His fingers brushed the tip of an ear, the shorn head, his son’s left cheek, where a patch of pink still lingered. Behind them, the delicious butter-dripping smell was in full swing, shaping up into – yeah. Definitely hot-cross buns. He shook his head.

 

"I see you’ve met your Nan. Got properly introduced to the family rites, too."

 

Sherlock was still looking at him, his face ten years younger than when Lestrade had last seen it, not from the silly disguise but from the pulse of hesitant, avid joy. He rubbed his hand at the chastised cheek, then bit his lower lip.

 

"She – seems to have skipped a part."

 

And then arms were rising, his, Sherlock’s – it didn’t matter which of them took that first step, and it would be Lestrade’s own joy, in retrospect, not to know – and he was gathering Sherlock to him. Offering that tight, safe place between his arms and his chest that would be Sherlock’s space and privilege as long as he wanted to claim it. Lestrade knew that he was being held too, with an impetus that left them rocking on their knees in the open grass, father clasped to son, son cradling father, long enough for the shadows to lengthen across the grass. One of which was waving a wooden spoon over their head.

 

"All right, you two. Less cuddling and more cooking – I could do with a pair of hands to peel the apples!"

 

But she wrapped an arm around Sherlock when he leapt nimbly to his feet, and looked at him with a beaming smile. His was a little self-conscious, but a far cry from his usual Hark-Hark-the-Snark edition. Lestrade watched the two of them together, a lovely if slightly misty sight. He listened as his son asked eagerly how he’d fared, if he’d got the accent right, and Ma answered that next time, if he gave a bit more notice, she’d teach him how to sew knee-patches on his jeans because they were the gardener’s true badge of office. Apparently, Sherlock had walked right into the house and collided with Ma as she climbed the stairs down from her nap. No heart had been harmed in the process, though Lestrade suspected decibels must have flown high and low around his prodigal before they set their heads together to surprise him.

 

"I wish you boys would stay another day or two." Ma sounded already wistful. "The new worms are due on Tuesday, all forty-five of them, and they’ll need a bit of cheering on at first. The last batch was simply hopeless, you’d think they’d never seen a tomato in their lives. No zing at all."

 

"Oh," Sherlock said, and then, clearly struck by lightning, " _oh_. Have you thought about Africanizing them? I could try and get – "

 

"The 6:25," Lestrade cut in hurriedly. Then relented. "We’ll be back at Whitsuntide, Ma. Plenty of time for you two to do your research in-between. Now come inside and help me get some food into him, so he can tell his old man a tale or two."

 

\--------------------------------------

 

It was only when they were settled in the bus, their bags stored overhead in the rack and Ma's hug still warm in their memories, that Sherlock spoke his one-word query. The one Lestrade knew had lain in waiting all the time.

 

"...John?"

 

"Hmmm? John what, son? Oh, don’t you huff-and-puff, laddie – you deserved it. And if you're asking if John will give you the back of his hand, same as Ma, before he asks me for yours...I’ve really no idea. Perhaps. Perhaps not. But, Sherlock –"

 

He leant sideways; Sherlock bent over him.

 

"Listen, sunshine. What I said this morning? Goes without saying. So when you run off again, because we both know you will, you’ll know how I stand. Because that’s what Sigers do. Let go when they have to and wait for their sons to find them again. But John...  John’s a fighter, and it’s not fair to leave him with his arse on the side road when you take off." Lestrade himself took a new breath. "You tell me about my mistakes often enough, Sherlock. Don’t make that one."

 

Sherlock remained silent, but Lestrade felt their shoulders touch; felt the tiny rustle that was Sherlock nodding gravely.

 

"Now we’d better hurry up before he ODs on lavender. And next time you come back, you bring him to meet your Nan. Though I swear, God help us all if he tells her to Afghanize her worms."

 

"You’re really – " For some reason, Sherlock had to stop, then give it another try. "You’re really very sure that I’ll always come back."

  

"Course I am." And Lestrade said no more. For the bus was storing a new speed, lurching toward the station, and as it did a tunnel vision opened inside of him. Barely a flash, a snapshot a long way down the road, but it showed him another figure posing before a line of bee-hives, his thatch of hair turned from grey to white and a bee perched on it. He knew that the man was him on a day yet to come, and he had an inkling of who would be behind the camera, taking the pic.

 

 

"We’re Lestrades, son." The next bumping turn of road was coming up, and he took advantage of it to drop a kiss on the cropped head.

 

 

"Coming back? That’s what we do best."

 

 


End file.
